


Always Red

by OlwenWhiteTrack



Series: Always Red [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Blood and Gore, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Delirium, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Gore, Graphic Imagery, Minor Character Death, Murder, Murderers, Near Death, Obsessive Behavior, Psychological Torture, Sexual Tension, Torture, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Hate, murder buddies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 16:54:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 62,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24200155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OlwenWhiteTrack/pseuds/OlwenWhiteTrack
Summary: You ever wonder what it would be like if Inquisitor Cal acted like both Valeska twins? … Yeah me neither.
Relationships: Inquisitor Cal Kestis/ Female Jedi Reader, you/ inquisitor cal kestis
Series: Always Red [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2047709
Comments: 234
Kudos: 301





	1. A Game of Cat and Cat

**Author's Note:**

> I guess you're in Cal's role and Cal is in Trilla's. She's still around though.
> 
> Idk Thank you for reading and for feedback! Enjoy!

The darkness surrounding you hums with vibrant emptiness. You can't see an inch in front of your nose but without your eyes you can hear that the space around you is vast. The sequential drips of water droplets sound from a good distance away and echo somewhat before reaching your ears. The staleness of the moist air is overwhelming as the scent of a space gone centuries, even millennia, without sunlight permeates your hair and clothing. In another circumstance you may have been comforted by the cradling darkness and earthy smells, imagine the nap quality. In this Zeffo cave, however, you're wracked instead by the nerves and adrenaline that come with being relentlessly pursued. 

The Empire had landed but they haven't seen you yet. You had watched as the swarm of black Advanced v1 TIE fighters landed like flies over the jutting Zeffo hills in the distance. Just find your way back to the ship and they may not even know that you had already found the Tomb of Eilram. You'd jet off the planet in the Stinger Mantis and they'd be three steps behind, like always. 

First, you have to find your way out of this cave. You extinguish the endless potential of the dark space before you as your lightsaber ignites. It bathes every inch of your immediate radius in a golden light; enough so that you don't fall into a bottomless chasm but not enough to illuminate the ceiling. As you move forward with cautious steps the light of the cave entrance fades away and the space behind you is swallowed in darkness. The cavern is completely silent, your hard breaths are deafening. You can do little to soothe your heart rate hammering in your chest as the feeling of eyes on you becomes overwhelming. 

Saber in hand, you spin in place to surely catch your spectator in the act.

Nothing but emptiness, before and behind you. You let out a deep breath that causes the moisture in the air around your lightsaber to swirl elegantly. With some difficulty, you shake your shoulders and the feeling of a close looming presence falls away. Exhaling your anxiety and breathing in the confidence to continue. You turn round once again to resume the trek onward. 

When you turn, the light from your saber is cast over the bone chilling visage of an Inquisitor's helmet inches from your own nose. The strip of red glass bisecting the shiny black plasteel radiates a blinding orange in the yellow glow of your saber. You can't see them but you feel the intense gaze cast out from behind the headgear. All you manage to produce is a loud gasp as you rock back and slam yourself against the metal railing of the walkway which spans a section of this daunting chasm.

“Hello, Gorgeous.” a modulated voice rings out into the blackness between you.

You recognize this voice. It belongs to the one you've learned is the newest addition to the Inquisitors' ranks, the Eleventh Brother. He was there on Bracca. He had joined the other Inquisitors in a chase on Kashyyyk and failed with the rest of them to capture you. His pursuit of you has become slightly more personal after the loss. 

The instincts of your training take over. Sparing not even a second for thought you lift your leg and plant it harshly in the center of his chest. The impact sends him skidding backwards nearly off his feet until he extends his hand before him, palm down to anchor himself using the Force. The Inquisitor emits a blood curdling laugh that bounces back from the cave walls in every direction. 

“They told me you were a fighter but I didn't believe them from the look of you.” One end of his red saber comes to life lighting up a small area around him in a sickening crimson glow. “Will you come quietly or are you looking for a warrior's death like all the other Jedi?” 

You find his levity vexing and refuse to dignify his banter with a response. You opt instead to let your bladework speak for itself as the cavern comes alive in bright flashes of yellow and red colliding and exploding in bursts of orange. The electric buzz and crackle of lightsabers bouncing off each other fills the air. 

You are loathe to give him even an inch of your space but the dance forces you both back and forth along the metal walkway. You can feel it shake under your feet from the impact of his blows. Your stance has been mostly defensive in the face of his onslaught. He's arrogant and you can feel it in the way he fights. It's reckless and showy.

You can only see the immediate area around you and so the imminent rock face that juts suddenly into your space is a surprise. You're not sure he's even seen it and so this is the opportunity you've been waiting for. When your sabers are locked and pulsing against one another you take a dangerous gamble by placing one hand on the side of his helmeted head and with all your might you crash it into the rock wall. He's caught off balance but the damage is minuscule as his head bounces off the stone. That is until you focus an intense blast of Force energy from the palm of your hand into the side of his helmet trapping it between the immense discharge of energy and the unforgiving rock. A crack spreads up the wall like a bolt of lightning as a screw fastening the metal walkway to the wall comes away. 

The ground beneath you falters and you grab haplessly for balance. A short distance away you can spot a mottle of hazy sunlight, hopefully from the exit. Where your steps were before cautious and careful you now throw yourself heedlessly towards that light. Escape within your grasp. 

You can't say why but you stop at the cave exit and spare a glance backward over your shoulder.

Exhaust pours from the Eleventh Brother's wrecked helmet and some sparks fly when he tears it frantically from his head. The discarded but very live lightsaber at his feet sends smoke up into the air around him from its contact with the rail. The Inquisitor flips his shock of red hair as he grasps at the busted railing to keep from falling into the abyss below. His nose is gushing scarlet blood down his face and he spits crassly at his feet. 

You lock eyes with him and it becomes difficult to tear away your gaze. He stares at you with fiendish yellow eyes riddled with the red network of burst blood vessels. They shine out at you from within deep dark circles making the brightness of them unsettling.

The Inquisitor dares to grin at you, showcasing his bloodied mouth. He swipes his tongue across his teeth tasting his own blood while never once looking away from you. Your skin crawls as you realize suddenly that this frozen moment to observe him was unwise. He lets out a satisfied groan that coils your insides.

“Finally!” he spits red again, “Alright, hot stuff, you've got til the count of ten.” 

A pause stretches in the space between the two of you. 

“ONE.” You dart out of the cave, not waiting for him to continue. 

As the cave shrinks into the distance behind you, you're not sure if you hear him cry out “Two” or “Ten.” next. Either way you're already gone when he renews his pursuit wholly.

You refuse to look behind you and the sound of your feet thudding hard on the frozen dirt is your only company for what feels like an eternity. You find yourself at the edge of a cliff and observe that the only way from here is up. Before you is an upward progress of heavy machinery. Massive pistons jut in and out of the mountainside at timed intervals. Each one is a moving platform to jump across. A quick glance behind you confirms that you are indeed alone and this helps you to focus more clearly on your task of crossing up and around the mountain's facade. 

You make easy work of leaping across several platforms passed some gargantuan machinery that works in an out the mountainside. The sound of the pistons pounding back and forth reminds you of thunder, although as you look up at the stormy gray sky you realize you can't tell it apart from actual thunder. Lightning flashes at a closer distance than you're comfortable with and a cold wind passes clean through your bones as you make your way into the tunneled hallway of the mountainside. 

You can see clearly to the other end of the stone tunnel though the view is blocked intermittently by the back and forth of the massive pistons. Small rocks go flying each time one lands and then recedes more slowly than it hit, before it slams again like a locomotive into the rock face. You'll have to be careful to make it across without becoming a splatter mark. 

Staying too long in one spot is making you nervous and even over the loud crashes of the machinery you think you hear the Eleventh Brother's footsteps behind you. With a deep breath you refocus yourself as you carefully time your dashes passed each wall of metal force. The last two become harder to eyeball and so you deplete your well of connectivity to the Force a little more to slow the pistons considerably. 

Just as you're about to take the final steps beyond the last danger this hallway of death had to offer, you pause when you see a flash of red at the corner of your eye. You were expecting to see the villain constantly but your heart still sinks at the sight of him. The lower half of his face is smeared in his own dried blood. When he looks at you his mouth moves and for some reason you strain to hear what he could be saying even though there's not chance of hearing him over the roaring machinery. 

It took you several minutes to cross the entire hall safely and so the obstacle between you gives you a flood of confidence at your head start in this chase. From his wild eyes and mad smile you could tell this Inquisitor seemed to like a bit of fun, though his definition of what that might entail was not your own. 

The channel of his steady stare is broken and reopened by the working machines but you know he can see everything you do. You cup your ear and wag your head back and forth. You mouth the words I can't hear you, painfully slow, and point to your ear shrugging emphatically, teasing him. His expression remains stone still except for his eyes. Even through the distance and all the dust floating in the air you see his eyes widen only slightly at the edges, like a child when it sees unopened gifts or a predator when its prey separates from the herd.

Immediately, you regret provoking him and it is with less confidence than you had when you first laid eyes on him that you watch your pursuer dash forward without even a glance spared to do it safely. Your instincts to protect all life cry out at the Inquisitor's reckless disregard for his own. You only see him pass the first two mechanisms, in less than half the time you had, before your other instinct towards flight flares up. Once again you run as hard as you can in whatever direction this man isn't. 

Somehow you've lost him again, that is, you haven't seen him in almost an hour. You risk a pause to orient yourself and with a sinking heart you realize you've been running away from the ship. When you start on your way again you spare the time to stick to your chosen route. This slows you down somewhat but so far the coast remains clear. You consider the possibility that the Eleventh Brother abandoned his hunt for you but as you recall the look in his bloodshot eyes you decide he doesn't seem the type, unfortunately. A voice inside you reprimands yourself for hoping he didn't make it out of the hall you left him in. 

You come across a massive wreckage crossed in front by crystal blue waterways. A nearby waterfall cascades over a segment of crashed starship that fills the air with cold mist. A huge fucking Jotaz is patrolling in front of the obvious way forward. It sweeps its arms in wide arcs walking back and forth and already seems angry enough. The bodies of several phillak litter the surrounding area. 

You press yourself into a cramped passageway through the ruined body of what may have once been a fine facility in order to avoid the beast.

Inside the structure, you emerge into a tall cylindrical room with a massive fan halfway up. You can see an exit past the huge rotating blades that are thankfully still. Several panels on the wall look loose or folded enough so that you can climb up to it, no problem. The real issue was sitting right in front of you fast asleep.

You chide yourself for believing that the Jotaz outside was big, when the behemoth in front of you could probably cradle it like an infant. This one sits with a massive hand draped across its expansive belly like a comfortable old man. You might laugh at the way it snored if you weren't running for your life. 

You stare at the great rise and fall of its sleeping chest as you step oh so quietly past. You could swear that the entire room grows hot when it exhales and cold when it breathes in. You let out a long slow exhale of your own as you realize you stopped breathing when you entered the room. Slowly, you make your way up the wall managing to frighten yourself only once when you nearly lose your grip but don't because you're awesome.

You make it to the final landing with a thud on the metal grating, a little heavier than you meant to. The creature stirs in the space beneath you. You're frozen in place when the beast scratches its face and adjusts its seat then settles again into a rhythmic sleep. 

Your muscles relax as you head for the door when lo and behold from the doorway below you spot him. His face lights up when he lays eyes on you. It's amazing how the Jotaz is the second thing he notices in the room. The smile fades into a blank expression but there's never a moment of shock or fear at the mighty beast mere feet from him. He had stopped himself from calling out to you but it wouldn't save him. 

“You'd better be quiet! Wouldn't want to wake this one up! Rise and shine, Big Guy!” You shout from the safety of the upper floor. You slap the metal siding sending waves of clanging out into the room.

One eye opens, shining like a black pearl, and then the other. The groggy creature stirs at this disturbance.

The Inquisitor wastes no time, igniting both ends of his lightsaber. He shouts up at you as he steels himself for the fight, stalking back and forth. 

“I love a good chase, Gorgeous, but you're starting to make me angry! It's like you don't want to see each other anymore.”

The creature is immediately enraged at the presence of another living thing in its nap space. 

The blades of his saber begins to spin rapidly emitting a loud whir and the appearance of a blurred but solid red ring. It makes its own air current that fans the hair framing his face. 

Before you leave your two buddies to sort their grievances, the Eleventh Brother's begrudgingly handsome countenance twisted in rage is the last thing you see. As you vault over metallic debris and on towards the beckoning Mantis you're not sure if you feel more sorry for the Jotaz or the Inquisitor. Definitely the Jotaz.

Relief floods through you. Your journey is nearing its end as the way to the hanger bay is just through the abandoned village. You tamp down the excitement that stirs in your chest at the notion of leaving this planet in the ion trail of the Stinger Mantis. You tell yourself not to celebrate at least until you break atmo. 

Your boots squelch in the wet mud and your brisk pace is abruptly broken as you hear the crackle of com radios coming to life just around the next corner. 

“No sign of her yet, sir. Or anyone really. All clear in the village.” The generic tone of a Stormtrooper's modulated voice carries over to you. 

You wait a moment before you steal a peak around the corner of the mud brick building, taking stock. 

“I hate this place. Why couldn't we be stationed, I don't know, literally anywhere else? At least somewhere without giant rats.” The bored trooper filled the silence with his griping. 

“I'd settle for another part of the planet even. These empty houses give me the creeps.” This trooper isn't even holding his blaster up. It's aimed at his toes. 

“Will you two shut up? One more complaint and I'll report you. You think it's bad here? I'll make sure you're reassigned to Hoth.” Their commander reprimands them soundly. 

“Sorry, sir.” 

“Yes, sir.” The two complainers answer in unison like scolded children. So it was three on one, you like those odds. It's safe to assume there's a sharpshooter on the roof of at least one of these buildings, maybe two. 

You inhale focus, centering yourself, and exhale doubt. When you step out of the shadows your lightsaber is already lit. 

You make quick work of the troopers. It's almost too easy, especially considering how tired you are. And you were right about the sharpshooters though it barely mattered as you deflect their own blaster bolts right back at them. The last shooter goes down with a groan that echoes far and wide from the nearby rooftop. 

Thunder crashes above you and a light rain has begun to fall. No surface on this dreadful planet seems permitted to dry. Before you return your weapon to your belt you take a final look around assessing the stillness. Every nerve screams out to continue towards the ship, you're almost there, but you can't shake the feeling again that you're being watched. Chafing under the unseen gaze of this particular predator you issue a challenge, bringing him to light. 

“I know you're here. Show yourself!” You shout above the loud patter of raindrops as you look in every direction around you. Your gaze passes over an area that was most certainly empty a moment ago and he's there. The Eleventh Brother sits on the edge of a crude well leaning his elbows on his knees. He sits like a fixture that's been there for years. One foot rests on the back of a fallen stormtrooper face down in the mud. 

“It's cute how you think you can get away from me. That you can fight this thing between us.” He smirks obnoxiously and looks up into the rainy sky letting the drops fall freely on his face. The inquisitor stands casually and brushes a hand over his wet face into his hair slicking it back. 

You're blown away by his delusion. “There is nothing between us. There will never be enough separating us.” Your voice is full of venom and you make sure to enunciate each word so that there can be no question about your message.

“Oh please, don't tell me you haven't enjoyed our little game of cat and mouse. Although from the look of all these dead mice I see now that we're both cats. No wonder you're so hard to catch.” He nudges another one of the fallen troopers with the toe of his boot.

“I'm really more of a dog person.” You don't know why you're entertaining him, you already know a fight is imminent better to just get to it. Yet you let him continue when he looks up at you with, is it admiration in his eyes? His arms fold across his chest.

“You know, I was trying to kill you before. What am I saying? That's obvious.” He taps his chin with a gloved finger. “But after hunting you all day I see the situation more clearly. What better way is there to get to know someone, am I right?” The way he levels his intense gaze at you chills you more deeply than the biting wind and rain. 

“You're going to make a perfect Inquisitor.” He ignores your deep grimace and continues unbidden.  
“All I have to do is get you in the chair.” 

You've heard enough. A shaft of bright yellow light comes between you when you ignite your lightsaber. He cracks his neck from side to side and bounces in place on the balls of his feet. The wide grin melts off his face and his lip curls with a fuming intensity.

“And I will, Y/N, … get you.” He licks his lips. “You don't even know that you're already mine.” 

“We'll see.” is all you manage to reply as you both crouch into fighting positions and both ends of his saber extend from the hilt.

He starts off grand, with a spiraling leap towards you, but you know it's only a distraction. You plant your feet ready to absorb the impact. He comes down even harder than you expected and it sends you a few steps back. He eats up the given space hungrily as he surges forward and you deflect blow after relentless blow. The rain sends puffs of steam up into the air when it comes in contact with the light of your sabers. 

You use his arrogance and showmanship against him when you catch him off guard with a classic leg sweep. Sometimes the simple ways are the most efficient ways. He growls in frustration from the muddy ground and protects his chest immediately from your descending blade. You throw your entire weight down over him and you have no choice but to place your knees on either side of his waist, too near for your comfort, but it could be the difference between walking away from this fight or not. Your locked sabers spit energy in every direction and you wince when you feel the heat from the sparks ghost across your cheeks. 

The Eleventh Brother feeds off your closeness and discomfort. Bringing his face dangerously close to the seething energy of your sabers he risks headbutting you hard in the nose. The action sends you reeling and when your opponent vaults to his feet you see the small burn under his eye from where his own saber caught him. 

His smile returns as you meet him in the space between you. Trading blows draws you across the muddy courtyard at a rapid pace. You chase every opening that presents itself to end the fight and his life and each time you're denied his disturbing grin grows wider at your bloodthirsty display. You feel as though he's teasing you with his shows of force and its becoming more difficult to focus in the face of this frustration. You can't let him get to you like this. It's what he wants. 

As you remind yourself to focus, the inquisitor catches you off guard and you are disarmed. Your saber bounces unceremoniously off the side of a hovel and lands in the mud. You're overwhelmed with vulnerability as you reach out in the Force to recall your weapon. You can feel that it's your last bit of energy and you pray inwardly that it's enough. 

Your opponent beats you to it and the weapon flies into his outstretched hand rather than yours. You feel betrayed as though it chose him over you. 

What happens next, you're not sure you understand completely. The relentless Inquisitor stops short and his breath sputters and comes in short bursts as though your lightsaber had infected him with some kind of poison on contact. He sinks to his knees. Its hard to make out in the rain but you think you see tears in his glassy bloodshot eyes.

Unarmed and unsure you feel frozen in place by the abrupt departure from the intense battle. 

He discards his own weapon to clutch his chest. “The sadness...the pain. It's … perfect.” A lusty groan escapes him and in a single heartbeat it becomes maniacal laughter. 

A wave of nausea passes over you as you watch him pitch forward in his fit of madness. The need to flee overwhelms you and you take the chance to sprint passed him and out of here. You abandon your lightsaber to him in favor of freedom. He grabs wildly at you with his free hand and comes away with only a handful of air as you bolt passed.

Between gulping breaths and bouts of unhinged laughter he shouts after you. “You can't hide, Y/N! Not from me! Never from me.” He clutches your lightsaber to his chest like you've given him a precious gift. 

Your hard footfall pounds up the ramp of the Mantis and before anyone can ask you what's the matter you use your last bit of strength to tell Greez to take off NOW. 

You collapse onto the orange cushions in the lounge and despite your best efforts to remain calm you see an evil red glow every time you close your eyes.


	2. Like an Arrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There she is.” He can't help but smile.” There's my girl.” 
> 
> Cal ignites his lightsaber and takes a ready stance, his face aglow in crimson light. You've seen him exactly this way in your dreams almost every night since the last time you saw him. It sends a shiver down your spine.
> 
> “Come and get it, Gorgeous.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and for feedback! You are the apple of mine eye.

The humidity is sweltering. You feel your clothes stick to every nook and cranny of your wet skin and as you traipse through the dense jungle of Kashyyyk.

Mari Kosan had contacted Cere with Tarfful's location. And so you find yourself leaping over clusters of relentless saava plants that creep up behind you if you're still for too long. Their single-minded pursuit of your vitality brings a certain Imperial Inquisitor to mind. You shake the image of his unsettling yellow eyes on you. You're afraid that if you consider him too much he will appear before you as if summoned. 

Your ears are dogged by the fierce buzzing of insects. You slap the side of your neck with a loud thwap as you catch one in the act of stealing a taste. When you look down at your palm there is a small red spattering of your own blood.

As you step out into a clearing overlooking a body of emerald green water you think to yourself that Kashyyyk is a lovely place, or it would be if nearly every plant and absolutely every animal wasn't trying to kill you. It certainly lent a majestic beauty to the landscape. Deadly things always have majestic beauty. 

In the view of your macrobinoculars you spot a cluster of undisturbed wyyyshokk in the far distance. As you map your route forward you take special interest in avoiding them, even if it means journeying deeper into the dense jungle. Shaken by the grim prospects of the darker thicker sections of this forest, you comfort yourself by patting the vibroblade strapped to your leg, running the entire length of your thigh. You tap a finger on the blaster fastened to your other hip. Though they are poor substitutes for your lightsaber. When you step forward with the sun on your face, it is with a renewed vigor for the task at hand. 

The farther away you get from the Partisan camp, where the mantis lay waiting for you to return with good news and intel, the more likely it becomes for you to encounter Imperial forces. You almost wish that you would run into some dopey stormtroopers already because that somehow makes you feel less likely to run into an Inquisitor. It's just probability. How much bad luck could one person have? 

Your vibroblade hums through the air as you hack and slice your way through a close knit of green vines. The path forward narrows until the only way to proceed seems to be down a massive incline slick with muck. The way your boots squelch loudly as you shift your weight from foot to foot is undignified.

You pause a little while as you pretend there is any option other than to launch yourself down this mudslide. To unsettle matters further, the downward slope turns a corner and there's no way to see where it leads. 

“The Force is with me.” you whisper to yourself before you leap a third of the way down the incline.  
Mud sprays your face as it fans off your legs. You do your best to keep your mouth closed as you slide. Against your better judgment you let yourself actually enjoy the wind in your hair. That is until the turn looms closer. You see already that the arc of your current trajectory is going to send you off the edge.

Just before you're sent flying into the air over a canyon of the tallest trees you've ever seen, you spy a cluster of loose vines above the nearby landing platform where the incline evens out. You reach out to the the rope-like vines in the Force and with a moment of stillness as you're suspended in the air, you call them to your waiting hand. 

You don't give the vines a moment to consider your weight on them as you swing with the propulsion of your miscalculation to land smoothly on the even ground. You wipe the caked mud off your face and your feet slip out from under you when you flick it off your hands. 

“Of course” you mutter under your breath as you struggle to right yourself on the slippery ground. At least camouflage won't be an issue since every inch of you is wet with mud. 

All around you is impenetrable vegetation creating a wall of green on every side. You wonder if it may have been wiser to take your chances with the wyyyshokk but then think better of your choice when you remember the terrible clacking sound they make when they're excited. The thought makes you shiver.

You raise your vibroblade high once you decide that the only way is through but then stop short. You drop into a low crouch when you hear voices nearby. You create a small window in a heavy curtain of hanging vines. An entire open area that was hidden from you is now open to your view. The jungle has a way of hiding things when they're right in front of you. 

You see two all black advanced v1 tie fighters at a distance far enough to remain unseen but close enough that you can hear the pilots clearly. Dread spreads through you like a steady and inevitable forest fire when you take in the shapes of three figures. 

The central figure, Trilla Suduri, is made up of the fractured blue light of a holo. Her face is hidden by the winged inquisitor helmet she wears but you recognize the Second Sister by her impeccable posture and terrifying poise. 

Beside Trilla stands the behemoth form of the Ninth Sister. Her horned jaw juts forward in a deep grimace as she towers over her dwarfed associates. Her usual expression. The red visor of her helmet shines brightly in the hot Kashyyyk sun and your vision is speckled with dots for a few minutes after looking at it for too long.

Of course, he's there as well. His hands are on his hips and he appears as though his time spent here is an inconvenience. He looks at his feet while he speaks, bored. Your lightsaber is clipped onto his belt beside his own.

“Just let me handle this. I'll contact you when I have her.” He looks up at the Ninth sister, “You can wait here.” The Eleventh Brother turns to leave, impatient to begin his business of hunting you.

“Kestis! You have yet to be dismissed!” Trilla's authoritative tone strikes him in the back so hard that he stops. Slowly, begrudgingly he half turns to face them. 

The Ninth Sister's laugh is a deep rumble. “Aw, you know how Cal gets with his toys. What happened, little guy, Tapal never teach you to share?” 

You thought you had seen him angry. As his eyes darken and the corners of his mouth sink low into a deep scowl you realize you hadn't. 

You've already fought him and more than held your own against his suffocating rage and hate. So you're especially angry with yourself for letting a spike of adrenaline, and perhaps a small hint of fear, pass through you when in an instant his lightsaber is in his hand and he stalks back in the Ninth Sister's direction. Deadly intent plain on his face.

“That's enough!” Trilla shouts again, tearing off her helmet.

Cal stops short before he can ignite his weapon but it isn't because of his commanding officer's imposing tone. His unfocused eyes scan randomly in front of him and he lowers his head as though he's listening for something. He lifts his nose following a scent on the air. Your single second of fear and doubt is a drop of blood in the water activating every one of his senses. He casts them out around him like a net. 

Indifferent when her subordinates are no longer in danger of tearing each other apart, Trilla issues her command. 

“I don't care who does it, just bring the Jedi to heel or kill her. Neither of you is leaving this planet until it's done.” With the relaxed surety of an apex predator she repositions her helmet and exits the conversation by blinking out of existence. 

Taking Trilla's exit as a signal for your own, you start to creep away before the Eleventh Brother can use your vulnerability against you and narrow in on your location like a magnet.

“She's mine, Cal. I'm going to catch your little pet. I'll succeed, y'know, where you failed.” The Ninth Sister attempts to goad him on.

The Inquisitors' eyes lock. Cal sucks his teeth before turning away from his adversary dismissively. She spits on the ground behind his turned back and makes for her ship. 

“Doubt it.” he tosses over his shoulder without even a backward glance. Of course he has to have the last word.

As you disappear back into the jungle you appeal to the Force and hope against hope that these inquisitors will destroy each other.

For a time your arduous trek becomes alarmingly uneventful. The thick greenery even thins out somewhat, giving your arms a rest from hacking and slashing through the brush. The trail brings you to the edge of a deep ravine. The only way across is a beetle eaten log that looks like it couldn't support the weight of a porg. You wonder how Wookies manage their way to the other side as you take your first tentative step and your boots sink into the spongy rotten wood. 

You steady your breathing. Inhale confidence, exhale doubt and don't look down. As you reach the center of the gaping expanse you try not to rush when you hear the telltale creak of support giving way. Before you have a moment to consider darting forward or back the way you came you're falling through the air, cascades of sawdust and wood splinters tumble in a cloud around you. 

You return to consciousness in a fit of coughs and hacking. The sharp pain of it sends you bolting upright. You kick frantically at a creeping saava plant that winds itself up your leg slowly and scramble backwards. When your back hits the wall of the ravine bottom you wince sharply. The stone walls are covered in thick vines sporting hideously large thorns all the way up. You stand and test the soreness of your shoulders, flexing them together and apart. The saava plant, unrelenting in its pursuance, inches towards you and with one resolute stomp it is extinguished. 

As you scrape your boot on the rocky floor the loud sound of growing and stretching plant life fills your ears from all sides. Where there is one saava plant there are many. 

In the long narrow canyon there is only backwards or forwards to choose from. The plants move slowly so you have a moment to decide. Further down one end, there seems to be an excessive amount of ominous white webbing clinging to the walls and fading into darkness beneath the rocks. You're decision is easily made. When you turn to go you're caught off guard.

“Hey, Gorgeous. How's my girl?” the Eleventh Brother's jolly tone is unseemly. Your gut churns as you turn to face where he stands as though he's been waiting for hours. Without thinking your blaster is out of the holster and trained on the Inquisitor, aimed right between the eyes. 

“I've been wondering when you'd show up.” You growl. 

“You know I hate to keep you waiting. ” he holds his arms out putting himself on display for you. “Don't worry though I'm never far behind you.” Cal doesn't seem to care a lick about the blaster. He must not know what a good shot you are. 

“I want my lightsaber.” You can't take your eyes off of him for a second but you risk taking a few steps forward when you remember the saava plants behind you. 

He unclips the weapon from his belt. Your heart is in your throat when he tosses it the air and catches it like a child's toy. 

“I don't blame you, it's a good weapon. Perfectly constructed.” He smiles at it in his hand. “It's not really yours though is it, Y/N?.” Cal wags the saber at you pointedly. 

“Of course it is.” You hate the joy he receives from toying with you. 

There's a long pause while he examines the saber closely. He holds the hilt up to his eye and peers down the business end of it. Cal lowers it before you can flip the power switch telepathically. He must have been reading your mind.

“Your Master went down like a ton of bricks, huh?” It wasn't a question. You don't mean to lower your weapon but it sinks downward anyway. 

“What?” you ask so quietly you don't think he hears. He doesn't need to, your face says it all. 

“I couldn't save mine either, but at least I did everything I could.” He looks you over with mock sympathy in his eyes as he takes a seat on a mossy boulder. “Why didn't you warn him about that trooper coming up from behind?”

“I tried! When I opened my mouth nothing came out. Everything was moving so fast... I could barely breathe.” You try to defend yourself uselessly.

He gives you an expression that reads 'yeah right' and touches a fingertip to one of the thorns on the wall. How did he know all this? You've never told a soul how your Master died in the Purge or how it was your fault.

“In all fairness, he must not have been a very good Jedi to begin with. I'd never get caught off guard like that.” He shakes out his hand and sucks on the fleshy pad of the finger he had used to test the point.

Your eyes sting and your throat clenches as you vow not to let a tear slip, though it's impossible to hide how upset you are. He huffs a quiet chuckle at your expense then shakes his head in exasperation.

“You're looking at it all wrong. You'll see it was a good thing. I'll show you. You just have to come with me.” His wild eyes are full of hope, something you're not sure he's ever felt before. You're not sure why he seems to feel it now.

Your chin quivers and he thinks it's from sadness but it's from rage. Two emotions Jedi should never give in to. You blast the slithering flower of a saava plant that's gotten too close.

After you let a few beats of silence pass, the Inquisitor stands with resigned purpose dusting his hands off on one another. His face hardens.

“I'm not gonna kill you. You're going to be an Inquisitor. But that doesn't mean I won't hurt you.”  
His voice was calm, his stance relaxed. You blast two more saava vines before you holster the blaster, ignoring him. He frowns; he hates being ignored.

“You're coming with me, whole or in pieces. You can decide, I don't have a preference.” Cal's threat hangs heavy between you. 

In response you unsheathe your vibroblade and sink into a fighting crouch, drawing a line in the sand.

“I said. I want. My lightsaber.” You say with as much menace as you can manage. Cal takes a long look at you and bobs his head, nodding.

“There she is.” He can't help but smile.” There's my girl.” 

Cal ignites his lightsaber and takes a ready stance, his face aglow in crimson light. You've seen him exactly this way in your dreams almost every night since the last time you saw him. It sends a shiver down your spine.

“Come and get it, Gorgeous.” he says in a throaty voice that also sends a shiver down your spine. Your body's response repulses you.

Jedi should be calm, thoughtful and collected in and out of battle. You chide yourself for letting passion get the better of you as you let out a kind of growl you can both hear over the colliding of your blades. His stance is extra wide and solid. He remembers how you brought him down him on Zeffo, you won't ever trip him again. If something ever catches Eleventh Brother off guard, it only happens once. 

Your foot slides slightly in the mud and it's the opening he needs to gain purchase in your struggle. He pushes you up against the ravine wall and you cry out when a row of thorny vines sticks you through your thin linen shirt across your back. The injury leaves a line of perfect red circles across your shoulders. He grins at the delicious sound and you use this distraction to snatch your lightsaber off his belt.

Ignoring the sharp pressing pain in your back you knee him between the legs and shove as hard as you can. He didn't expect you'd play dirty. For a moment your opponent is sent reeling backwards fighting the urge to curl into himself. When his face twists in pain you tamp down a small surge of satisfaction. 

The temporary space between you allows you to ignite your golden yellow lightsaber and the light of it fills you with confidence. By the time he collects himself you're brandishing both the saber and your vibroblade against him. 

He's already seen you fight the safe sure way of the simplest and most efficient lightsaber forms. He believes it's all you know because he is arrogant. Instead you give him a taste of his own medicine as you launch yourself at him in a whirlwind of wide double bladed spins, one after another. Cal is forced back several paces and he's not even mad about it. Instead, a wicked grin spreads underneath his dumb lovestruck eyes.

The romance is short-lived. Inquisitor Kestis throws up an open palm and suddenly you have been stilled entirely. Every muscle in your body feels as though a thousand weights are hanging from it.You rein in control of the instant panic that floods your chest. It takes all your focus and willpower to move even an inch. 

Cal makes to close the short distance between you when he groans at the unpleasant sting of a saava plant that crept in close and unseen while you fought one another. He plucks a large barb from his calf and with a flick of his wrist the eleventh Brother beheads the carnivorous plant.

Your heart cries out in gratefulness as in those few seconds the slowness wears away and you return to yourself. Wasting no time you surge forward and cross your weapons in a beheading lunge. The shrewd Inquisitor throws his head and shoulders back, narrowly avoiding the execution. You swear you can smell his chin hairs sizzle in the heat of your lightsaber.

So you want to play dirty? You want to get flashy? He can do all that. With one free hand he grabs your wrist and in a smooth duck under your arm he twists it behind your back. The vibroblade is quickly torn from your grasp. With need for another free hand he discards his lightsaber and grabs at your other wrist. In a flash you're pressed up against the ravine wall. You cry out as you're punctured in neat rows down your face and chest by the thorny vines. He slams your hand repeatedly against the hard stone until your grip on your lightsaber loosens and it falls to the ground extinguished.

The air is forced from your lungs as you're pressed between the thorn covered wall and his chest on your back. The Inquisitor's breath is hot in your ear. 

“I thought you were special on Zeffo. When I touched your saber I knew. I felt it and I know you feel it too.” 

In response you snap your head back and with a loud crack you hear his nose break. His hold on you doesn't break but loosens enough for you to lift your leg and plant your foot on the ravine wall. You push off and throw yourself backwards with all your might.

Ever adaptive, Cal goes with the motion and turns your momentum in a neat suplex. You land flat on your face with his knee pressing hard between your shoulder blades.

“You can't shake me off that easily, Y/N” 

Your cheek sinks into the cool mud and it's almost soothing on your angry puncture wounds from the thorns. Your breath comes in ragged gulps as you struggle to free you arms. In answer he pulls them further upward causing you to cry out. Arms don't bend that way. 

You feel hot liquid drops land on your fingers dripping down to your elbows. It tickles a little. Blood free flowing and gushing from his nose no doubt. Apparently he's a real bleeder. Boy can't hold his mud. 

Your heart sinks into the pit of your stomach when, out of the corner of your eye, you see he's brought out a pair of arm cuffs. Your neck aches as you crane it as hard as you can to see him. This is it. You're caught. 

“No, no! Cal, don't!” You cry. The fight hasn't gone out of you completely. 

You can't see him but you can hear the smile in his voice. 

“Music to my ears. You have to know already that I enjoy it more when you struggle.” 

The air shifts and you stop listening to him. Every hair on your body stands at attention as though a cloud of electricity has settled over you. You strain your ears and lift your head sharply trying to listen. You plead with fate. You're so rattled you must have imagined the sound.

“I like the way you say my name by the wa-” 

“Will you shut up?!” You admonish the Inquisitor. You expect him to be angry, to slap or scold you at least. That's not how prisoners speak to their victorious captors. His motions stop dead, however, when his head whips to stare down the ravine. He hears it too.

The creeping saava vines that had inevitably zeroed in on your locations begin to recede with more speed than their pursuit. It's hard to tell on a faceless plant but you would swear they seem scared. Their urgency and fear fills the air like a terrible perfume. 

Cal steps off your back without looking at you. Your arms went numb held so long in that uncomfortable position so you sit up and scoot backwards. You shake out the sensation of pin prickles that travel up and down the length of each arm while staring past him apprehension.

Your worst fears are confirmed and a terrible bone chilling chatter echoes out from the darkness. The largest wyyychokk you've ever seen steps lightly out of the shadows, angry and disturbed by the ruckus of your fight with the Inquisitor. It's aged white carapace appears yellowed in the dim sunlight that speckles the ravine bottom. Six smaller juveniles scuttle outward from under their mother. Their clattering legs are almost clear near the ends. 

The Eleventh Brother fumes; so angry he looks hot to the touch. He hates being interrupted. His upper lip curls into an ugly sneer and you can feel swirling waves of Force energy gather around him as his rage builds.

Weaponless, he extends two open palms and raises them in the air above his head. Two of the young spiders on either side of their mother lift slowly into the air. Their legs flail uselessly as they struggle for purchase. 

You watch in horror when Cal curls his fingers into a ball and squeezes so hard his fists tremble. With a sickening chorus of squealing and crunching, the airborne wyyyshokks crumble in on themselves like collapsing stars. Their mother struggles to understand what she sees and chitters desperately. The two broken bodies fall to the ground in oozing heaps.

The great white whyyyshokk emits an ear piercing roar and you unload an entire clip of blaster bolts into her face from the ground behind Cal. She wails in pain and uses her two forelegs to scrape madly at her ruined eyes. The four remaining juveniles tumble back a few paces as the Inquisitor releases a wave of Force energy. 

Tossing the wasted blaster to the side you scramble to your feet and grab for the nearest weapon. The Inquisitor's lightsaber feels unfamiliar in your hand but you can't say that you don't feel a small surge of power from it. He hears the ignition of his own weapon and recklessly spares a moment to look at you. It isn't the first time you've seen him caught off guard but it is the first time you've seen it show on his face. He seems instantly out of breath and his eyes sparkle when you extend both ends of his scarlet lightsaber. 

With more stealth than a creature of her size should be allowed, the mother wyyyshokk charges Cal from behind and he is flung into the rock wall like a rag doll. You're stock still and the giant spiders don't seem to care for your presence as long as you're not moving. You file this information away for later use.

Cal groans and raises himself onto his elbows. He spots your fallen saber and calls it to his open palm but not before two of young but still very large creatures land on top of him. 

A bell goes off in your mind and suddenly you extinguish the weapon in your hand. You take a few tentative steps backward. Cal swipes madly from the ground in wide golden arcs as the spiders close in on him. Spindly limbs go flying in every direction. 

Before you slowly turn to excuse yourself from the discourse you watch the Inquisitor that's been hunting like an animal you disappear under a pile of arachnids. 

You start at a fast jog but soon you're sprinting away from where you left him. Instead of feeling fortunate to escape this near capture the way a good Jedi might, you feel a glow of satisfaction as your enemy meets a well deserved demise.


	3. You're Doing Amazing, Sweetie.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Half your face is illuminated in a vermilion glow and Cal can't help himself. His chest rises and falls as his breathing picks up speed. You can't tell if it's the venom or the stim but something tells you its neither.
> 
> “You look amazing in red, by the way.” You ignore him even if you can't seem to ignore the way his voice makes you hair stand up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed the rating because there's some pretty gruesome stuff in this chapter. It kinda hurt my feelings to even write it. I'm sorry it had to happen and you've been warned! 
> 
> I also upped the chapter count because there's a little more to the story now. : )
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading and for feedback! I just think you're neat. 
> 
> You can also follow my SW tumblr if it pleases you  
> tumblr.com/blog/droidrights

When you had first arrived on Kashyyyk and you laid your eyes on the daunting size and ethereal majesty of the Origin tree something told you that you'd have to climb it. You felt it call out to you in your bones. It's clear why such a life form is sacred to the wookies. The same way its roots spread far and wide over the planet connecting all life upon it you knew that whatever business you had here would culminate at the top of this primordial elder.

You're only slightly stung by the futility of struggling to locate Tarfful so that he could tell you to do what you already knew you would. You're mindful that you learn more from the journey rather than the destination. As you climb ever upward, hand to branch over and over, you ask yourself what you've learned from the pattern of stinging punctures lining your face, chest and back other than to stay away from thorns. Which you already knew. Also that Imperial Inquisitors are always bad news, which you also knew already. 

You've had no rest since your ordeal with the Eleventh Brother ended and you should be exhausted but the finality of how you had left him makes your limbs light and fills your heart with hope. You lament the keen loss of your lightsaber but better your weapon than your life. Perhaps on your way back down you can circle back to the ravine to see if it is easily collected. It may not hurt to lay your eyes on what's left of him either. Otherwise you're sure he'll haunt your sleep, perhaps for the rest of your life. Is that sick?

That only left the Ninth Sister. You don't want to assume from her size but something tells you that stealth isn't her modus opperandi. Hopefully you'll spot her before she does you and with any luck you'll sneak your way to the top of the Origin Tree, back to Mantis and off Kashyyyk before the Ninth sister even knows she's missed you. 

A small cluster of neatly made roofed platforms dot a wide expanse of the Origin tree. As you climb to the edge above you your nose is filled with the scent of burning wood and roasting meat, must be dinner time for the watch. Your mouth waters, maybe they'll share some with you.

You pull yourself up to the wookie outpost and expect to be greeted by the pleasant rumbles and ululating brays of Shyriiwook. Instead your blood turns to ice in your veins and you're deaf but for the ringing in your ears. You slowly absorb the space around you, detail by odious detail. It'll be too much to understand all at once.

Now that you see it splattered on every surface the metallic stench of congealed blood fills your nostrils. The bodies of several wookies litter the area, their long lustrous hair matted in gore. One hangs over the railing and his limbs sway in the wind, ghoulish and lifelike. The way your stomach was rumbling seconds ago causes it now to heave and you suppress the urge to vomit. 

Splintered wood litters whats left of the floor and black scorch marks pepper the landing. Heat still radiates off of the worst blasts. You step forward and the floorboard creaks loudly, protesting your weight after what it's already had to endure. The opposite side of the platform is blown to shit and the rest feels as though it will give way soon. In fact, it's telling you it will. 

From across the burning rope bridge you hear that the worst isn't over. The fracas is so loud you don't know how you haven't really heard it until now. When the loud roar of a wookie rings clear you compartmentalize the horrors before you and opt instead to assist if you can. Loathe as you are to make your way over another uncertain crossing you waste no time using the force to dash quickly across the bridge before the supports give way to the flames. The passing moment of your weight is enough to snap the stressed ropes as your toes touch the solid landing. 

As you pass another burning platform the roof collapses in flames. A short distance behind it is a clearing speckled with deep puddles and more dead wookies. She's there, standing center stage. Her dominating figure dwarfing even the massive wookie she's taken prisoner. It's Choyyssyk. The Ninth sister smiles when she sees you. 

“I knew you'd show up eventually. You Jedi hate to see this kind of stuff.” She lifts Choyysyk off the ground by his head, dangling like a fruit from the most terrible tree. “I'm surprised by how long it took you though, this isn't even my first outpost.” 

“Put him down. Now. I won't tell you again.” you impose the threat with as much authority as you can, so it stings a little when she is immediately filled with laughter. You're too late to save the others but you have to save your friend. 

“Maybe you should tell me one more time.” The Ninth Sister's fingers wrapped around Choyysyk's head tremble slightly. 

“No, don't!” You reach out desperately with the force and slow her hand but the strength there is too much. 

His cry is in an octave higher than you believed possible until it cuts out sharply with a hideous crack. Her victim falls to the ground like an empty coat and the the Ninth Sister shakes the red from her fingers. Dark beads of liquid fan out in an ugly streak at her feet. 

Rage spreads like a virus in your chest and you tell yourself there is a need for justice but in your heart you know it's revenge. Water gathers at the corners of your eyes and your throat stings from holding back tears. Not yet. You can't blurry your sight when this monster still needs to go down. Suddenly your focus surrounds you and hardens like armor and your resolve is knife sharp. 

“You'll answer for this. All of it.” You ignite both ends of your weapon...the weapon you have, and the scarlet light that emanates from it unsettles you. The Ninth sister is whooping with pleasure. 

“So you put down the Little Guy?!” Her laugh is robust and genuine. “I guess he was right! There must be something to you.” There's an unmistakable hint of esteem in her voice as she starts up her matching lightsaber. It surprises you.

“It won't matter though. He may have had plans for you but I don't. Your story ends here, Jedi.” 

A fight between two opponents can strike at any time day or night but true duels happen at at dawn or sunset. The blazing Kashyyyk sun had begun its slow decent below the horizon and it bathes the battlefield in a hellish blaze of red, orange and yellow. You take off at a breakneck sprint toward your enemy.

You already know that you're no match for her brute power. You have to each play to your strengths. She's faster than she looks but not as fast as you. Using the muddy ground to your advantage you lean back into a slide and pass through the Ninth Sister's legs. She narrowly avoids you severing both her feet. 

Can't find a weak spot? Make one. If you can use your speed to pick at one leg the entire fight she'll put all her focus into protecting her vulnerability and an opening will appear. Be patient and she'll wear down. This is what you tell yourself when you come up several paces behind her and her lightsaber is already slicing through the air like a propeller honing in on you. Your body reacts instinctively and you flatten yourself, just out of its reach. The weapon returns to her outstretched hand like a loyal pet. 

You make a show of darting past and dodging under her wide sweeping blows hoping to exhaust her soon but all it seems to do is make her angrier. 

“You fight like a coward! Face me!” she bellows. 

You land a glancing blow on her armored leg and she ignores the searing pain the way she's been trained to. The second time you catch the same leg the mammoth form of the Ninth sister falters onto one knee and you see the opening you've been waiting for. 

Quick as can be, you run up along the solid wall of the Origin tree and launch yourself like a missile at the Ninth Sister, ready to plunge your saber into her chest. Before you reach her you feel the air close around you like a vice and suddenly the forward momentum is not your own. The Ninth Sister pulls back her raised arm and you are drawn towards her hand like a yo-yo. 

“Gotcha.” This Inquisitor is smug. Like the other one.

As her massive yellow palm draws closer, the terrible sound of Choyysyk's demise there sounds in your ears. You smother the fear and panic overtaking you and attempt to replace it with sharpened focus. 

You are beyond tired but somehow you bypass the exhaustion that has dogged you since you first laid eyes on an Imperial Inquisitor so many systems ago. On Kashyyyk, in this mighty Origin tree, you feel sustained by a closeness to the heart of a planet so richly blanketed in the living Force. It allows you to tap further into your well of connectivity to it. Wave after desperate wave of force energy from your hands pummel the Inquisitor and you both hit the mud with a lewd slap. 

She scrambles over you, clawing at you like a fiend in the mud. As you clamber to right yourself your arm plummets to the elbow in a deep puddle of water. The Ninth Sister eclipses you like a planet and blocks out the jungle canopy lit up in the fiery pink rays of the setting sun. 

The Inquisitor wraps one clawed hand around your wrist, rendering your lightsaber useless, and one around your throat, plunging your head into the warm green water of the nearby puddle. Your vision of the Ninth Sister is blurred by the tumultuous water. The endless torrent of bubbles leaving your mouth take your will to fight to pop unceremoniously on the surface. When you kick your legs they hit the brick wall of the Inquisitor's waist, you'd might as well be tickling her. 

Darkness crawls in from the edges of your vision as you imagine there'd be more panic in a moment like this. Instead of lamenting your life yet unlived you feel a great resigned sadness that this Ninth Sister will continue to burn through the galaxy unchecked. All sinister agents of the Empire will, in places like this everywhere. You had saved Choyyssyk from slavery only for him to die in a bid for your attention. Each of these wookies will have died for nothing and now they're watching you perish from their afterlife, unavenged. It should be at least a mild comfort to you that they've been reunited with the Force but it doesn't. 

The water above you is becoming still as fewer and fewer bubbles escape your nose and mouth. The vainglorious grin of the Ninth Sister's horned face shines clear. Her mouth is moving though you can't hear her. Some snarky rejoinder no doubt, making light of your death and highlighting her victory. What a thing to look upon in your final moments.

Your sluggish mind begins to produce memories from your past, perhaps in an attempt at understanding its current state. 

You're shown a time you can't remember but you know is true. You're cradled in your mother's arms. Every sight and sound is brand new and you are safe and loved. Her nourishing presence is the only comfort you need in this world. 

The echoes of the great halls in the Jedi temple frighten you when you're very young. It's hard to tell which direction a sound is coming from when you're lost or fallen behind. 

You walk reverently behind your newly assigned Master. You are positively giddy to begin your training and bouncing with energy. Your Master smiles warmly and reminds you to take a deep breath and steady yourself. 

In the great hall that once frightened you as a youngling, you pass a padawan with copper colored hair trailing behind a formidable looking Lasat. You hold his bright eyed gaze for a few seconds before running after your Master.

A golden blur streaks passed and suddenly the Ninth Sister's grip is loosened and you're drawn out of your reverie. It takes a second you don't have to push her heavy arm away from you as you bolt upright from the water. You gulp at the air in wracking sobs and hack up gobs of green algae.

Once your wits are gathered enough to take in your surroundings, you see that the Ninth Sister's helmet has been replaced with a large oozing gash on her forehead as she struggles to stand on her bad leg. She looks as bereft as you feel when you suddenly refuse to believe your ears. 

“Having fun without me, ladies?” Your lightsaber, arcing through the air, lands comfortably in the Eleventh Brother's hand. 

He looks beat to hell. His pristine black uniform is muddy and torn. The chest plate is completely gone and you swear you can see his pulse thumping in the angry wound on his shoulder. It's the exact diameter of a wyyyshokk leg. Those things can be as sharp as spear points. 

Dried blood is crusted in the corners of his broken nose and his cheek is smeared in a flaky red swipe. Still, he looks better than you ever would have expected, certainly more alive than you expected. You're starting to believe that nothing can kill Cal Kestis. 

His appearance fills you with the combating feelings of elation and despondency. You are alive but at what cost? 

You're sopping wet and still taking in greedy gulps of air.

“How about a little more enthusiasm?” He shifts his attention from the Ninth Sister to you. “Not even a 'thank you'?” 

The Ninth sister straightens. As it stands, you find yourself smack dab in the middle of a battlefield with one Imperial Inquisitor on each side. There's a joke in here somewhere. 

“Down, boy! I know it's easy to forget but we are on the same side, you know. Not that I'm glad to see you but I knew a little waif like this one couldn't end an Inquisitor.” The Ninth Sister calls out across the way. 

“The fight's not over yet.”

Each of you stands battered but ready, waiting to see who will make the first move. Two red lightsabers and one yellow hum in the gathering darkness.

You certainly can't take them together. If you don't think quickly this could go very badly for you. Perhaps even worse than being drowned in a puddle.

Though you'd prefer not to choose at all, when confronted by two evils one must always choose the lesser. With this anecdote in mind you take your gamble and slowly but surely, step by step, inch closer to the Eleventh Brother's side. Your gaze bounces back and forth between the two of them. Cal is completely thrown by this as he watches you inch closer to him, even your lightsaber in his hand has fallen to his side.

All doubt that your destinies are entwined is banished from his mind as he smiles genuinely. In Cal's mind you've been his since Zeffo. He just expected you'd need more convincing to see that particular truth for yourself. To have you join him by his side, willingly, by choice. Why, it's almost too good to be true. He waggles his eyebrows at the Ninth Sister and gestures toward you with his thumb. 

“You see that?” he beams rhetorically. When you fall in beside him he has the audacity to wink at you. You suppress a scowl and instead you level your gaze at the Ninth Sister. 

In this close proximity you can hear the wheeze of his labored breathing, a side effect of wyyyshokk venom. The dark circles and heavy bags under his eyes are more pronounced than ever. He produces a small green stim vial and stabs it into his neck before stretching the muscles from side to side. 

The suddenness of his quick movement makes you flinch. Your uneasiness amuses him and Cal lets loose a haughty and wild laugh as you adjust your guard and he takes a ready stance. Against your better judgment, you choose to inhale confidence and exhale doubt.

Half your face is illuminated in a vermilion glow and Cal can't help himself. His chest rises and falls as his breathing picks up speed. You can't tell if it's the venom or the stim but something tells you its neither.

“You look amazing in red, by the way.” You ignore him even if you can't seem to ignore the way his voice makes you hair stand up. 

“Fine. Maybe the two of you together will amount to a challenge. I don't know what's got Second Sister thinking you're so important.” The Ninth Sister barks. “Honestly, you're not worth my time.”

“You have no idea how much I'm going to enjoy this.” His tone is an inappropriate amalgam of jovial menace and of course he has to get the last word. 

The Ninth Sister lifts her good leg and pounds the earth beneath her, sending a reverberating force through the soil that spreads out from her in a wave. It is easily avoided. 

The Sister is accosted on both sides by your relentless dueling. The hum and crack of lightsabers colliding is a symphony on the air. The way you work so harmoniously with the Eleventh Brother, weaving and bobbing in and out of each other's space, is a reality you refuse to acknowledge. 

The towering Inquisitor's breath is becoming ragged as she nears the limits of her focus battling against the two of you. Her opposition is nonexistent. Her every second is spent deflecting the onslaught. 

After one false move and a neat somersault Cal severs her hand at the wrist. There is a grotesque sizzle from the clean cauterized wound and the Ninth Sister only grits her teeth and groans. You seize the opportunity to knock her backward off her feet with an intensified force push. When her massive form crashes through the treeline you consider this fight over. For the Eleventh Brother however, there is only one way to end a fight. 

You greedily take a second to organize your thoughts and to really breathe. When you cast your eyes over the battlefield strewn with wookie corpses and that of your friend your vision tunnels out and the anger and hatred you feel for the Ninth Sister is renewed tenfold. 

From close behind you, Cal reaches out to your enemy in the Force and drags her, mangled, from the bracken. You can't see him but you feel the pleasure radiating off of him. His outstretched hand hovers over your shoulder and the Ninth Sister is suspended helplessly in the air before you, a stream of red from the wound on her forehead dips into every nook and cranny of her face as it drips down her chin. 

“Traitor!!” she's not even addressing you. 

“I told you, you were going to pay.” You can't keep the pain out of your voice. 

“For what? Some wookie trash? These lives mean noth-” her voice cuts out as you pinch your index finger and thumb together, upraised before you. A toothy grin spreads across Cal's face as the Ninth Sister grabs at her own throat with a clawed hand and one burnt stump. 

As you draw your fingers closer and closer together the loud and desperate gurgling slows and grows quiet. You wonder what kind of visions from her life are flashing through the Ninth Sister's mind. You consider for a moment what she may have been like as a youngling before your fist closes and you give it a squeeze for good measure. Cal's hand comes away from beside your ear and the ground beneath you trembles as your enemy slumps lifeless into the mud.

The glow of satisfied vengeance wanes quickly. Your vision becomes unfocused and the sounds around you fade out as you consider what you've done. The rapid beat of your own heart pounds in your ears and you feel the unstoppable creep of shame flood through your entire body. 

It isn't that you took the life of your enemy, even the greatest Jedi pacifist is sometimes forced to extreme ends. It's how and it's why. Anger, hatred, vengeance, these are not the ways of the Jedi.

You feel the warm and supportive gaze of Jedi ancestors turn from you. Night has fallen and the glow from the burning outpost does nothing to dissuade the chill in your bones. You feel paralyzed by your own emotions. His hand on your shoulder is strong and sure. 

When you turn to face him, Cal's gaze is far away. He's staring at the fallen form of the Ninth Sister face down in the dirt. If you waved a hand before him he might not see it. When he snaps to and looks into your eyes his pupils are unfocused and blown wide in exhilaration. He quickly recovers from disorientation.

“I'm so proud of you.” His voice is warm and silky. A tear rolls down your cheek and creates a streak through the film of dirt covering your face. 

You don't respond. You can't. All you can do is blink the tears from your eyes and ponder the desolate landscape of your future.


	4. The Quickest Way to an Inquisitor's Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He likes it when you get angry, when you close in for the kill, even when you look at him with fear in your eyes. Those things have become familiar and expected. This though, he doesn't know what to do with this and it shows in his quizzical expression. He looks utterly lost and the unfamiliar sensation is perplexing."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you SO SO MUCH for reading and for the lovely, charming, excellent, wonderful, delightful, heartwarming and tear-inducing comments! 
> 
> Please be warned that this chapter, like the others, contains graphic gore and violent near death experience! 
> 
> We're in the home stretch now! 
> 
> Enjoy!

The Kashyyyk sunset's dazzling bursts of color have given way to a starry blanket of night sky. The darkness you expected to engulf you in the deep jungle forest is illuminated in the bright silver light of the full moon. The shadows have grown deeper and darker stretching into infinity but every surface reflects at least a sliver of bright untarnished light.

Cal is riding the elation of working together. In his mind it is the first in a new history of fighting side by side. The dawn of an age. The reality of the situation means nothing to him.

In your mind, you had no choice but to make the best of a wretched situation. Your choices were to be crushed by two Inquisitors, by one and then the other, or to side with one yourself, temporarily. Now though, the tides are shifting once again and he won't be ready for it.

Cal holds up your weapon and powers it down. He looks at it admiringly before holding it out to you. The action is plain and full of trust.

“This was an intimate exchange. Will you tell me how it felt? To use my weapon?” His thumb runs back and forth over, but doesn't press down on, the power switch. You stand stock still, unsure of how to proceed. You've been unable to tear your gaze away from the Ninth Sister's corpse. When you don't respond he fills the void for you.

“It's hard to find the words, I know. There's no rush. We have all the time in the world.” Tired of waiting, he reaches for your hand to place the lightsaber in your palm. You draw back sharply, mostly on instinct. Cal doesn't understand. He laughs it off and reaches again only for the moment to repeat itself.

Like the flip of a switch, his deceptively warm demeanor hardens into something meaner as he comprehends your exchange.

“I'm not going anywhere with you.” You choke out the words. When you hear your own voice it makes you wince; though it wavers you remain resolute.

It'll be another fight and you just don't know if you have it in you but what choice is there? Even if you could draw up the strength, running headlong through the Kashyyyk jungle at night is a death sentence. Even under the light of the moon, your eyesight is no match for the nocturnal predators lying in wait and the planet is thick with them. Might as well take your chances with the one standing in front of you.

You think of their glowing eyes spying you from the trees when you finally raise your head and look Cal in the face. His bloodshot yellow eyes shine like glowing embers, fuming with rage. He huffs through his nose like an angry bull. His jaw works back and forth as he chews on his words before he speaks.

“Don't make me kill you after everything we've been through. After all the progress you've made.” You see the rage build even further as you start to create space between you. His lip twitches.

“WE WERE SO CLOSE!” The volatile Inquisitor spits. A piece of his hair shakes loose and falls into his eyes. The moonlight has sapped all of the bright copper color from it.

“No. I'm a Jedi.” Without thinking you throw his dual ended weapon to the ground. Even without psychometric abilities you feel tainted by what it means. What it's been used for. He passes a hand over his face and through his hair and some of the steam goes out of him as he scoffs at you.

“I've never seen a Jedi choke the life out of an enemy for revenge before. But I did see that little squeeze at the end, you didn't have to do that. Don't deny it, Y/N, I could feel how angry you were. You can't hide it from me. ” He's emboldened by what he's seen you do.

“She had to be stopped!” Your defense is meager, even though you're right. He nods his head in a mocking agreement. Suddenly Cal is no longer fuming and he's eased back into joyfully deranged. He felt like he was losing you before and now he's winning again, this conversation at least. His frivolity makes you mad. You're sure he can feel a wave of the emotion pass over you because he chuckles, which only makes you angrier.

“It was one moment of weakness. One bad decision. The galaxy is still a better place without her in it.” You ask yourself why you're even having this conversation, trying to justify your actions to a madman.

“I don't disagree with you there. I'm definitely happier now that she's gone.” Cal takes a seat on the Ninth Sister's broad back and rolls his injured shoulder. When he shifts the cloth of his uniform he sucks in his breath with a hiss and exposes the angry wound. The vulnerability of this action baffles you, his guard is completely lowered. Even injured he believes you're no match for him.

You are repulsed by his irreverence in choosing a seat but damn if your legs aren't tired. Suddenly the exertion of the last twenty four hours steamrolls you completely. You should take off into the forest. You should just leave on the Mantis; go back into hiding. Somewhere this relentless Inquisitor would never find you to live out your days in hermitage. A deep hidden section of your mind already knows a place like that doesn't exist. He'll always find you.

You let out an exhaustive breath and your knees nearly give out. Putting aside your reservations, you sit cross-legged on the ground where you stood. Moisture soaks into your pants and you don't know if it's mud, scummy water, or blood. Better not to know.

Cal is applying a bacta patch to his shoulder he produced from a small pouch on his belt and he's doing a terrible job of it. He eyes you warily for a few moments in silence. He reaches into the same pouch and pulls out a small rations bar. The Eleventh Brother breaks it in half and holds a piece out to you.

You are absolutely starving and your mouth instantly waters at the sight of the dry gravelly sustenance. Your gaze darts back and forth between his face and the offered food warily. Cal's shoulders sag and he takes a big showy bite of his portion to prove it's safe to eat. You must be losing it because you gingerly accept the offering.

The bizarre nature of this moment is not lost on you even though Cal looks as though you share meals together every day for all his nonchalance. The silence is filled with your combined chewing. Seconds before you realize how absurd this is and end the moment of domesticity Cal speaks up.

“Kriffing spiders. I had you.” He's looking into the distance, pensive, and he chews like a horse.

“The cuffs weren't on yet. Who knows what I could have pulled off?” You know he's right but your nature is to oppose him at every turn.

“You can be very surprising” he cedes. “It's refreshing. Everyone else is so boring.” His smile is warm and playful. You catch a glimpse of what he might have been like if not for the Empire's Inquisitorius Program.

The corner of the bacta patch Cal haphazardly slapped onto his shoulder curls up from under his uniform. An edge of it has adhered to itself and all the stickiness dried out from an entire corner of the patch. He smooths it down uselessly, only for it to curl up once again. Frustrated, he rips it off and pulls a new patch out of his pouch.

“I hate these things.” The Inquisitor complains as he rips off the backing and the entire adhesive side folds in half, sticking to itself. He crumples it in his fist and pulls a third.

You sit quietly and watch him struggle. Savoring each nibble of your meager ration.

He holds the patch up in front of his face and scrapes his thumb repeatedly over the edge in attempts to catch a seam between the backing and the patch. There's a relentless tick tick tick as he fails over and over again. Cal lets out an impatient puff, pauses and then renews his attempts with furious vigor before he crumples the entire thing in a fit until you stop him.

“Stop already! You're wasting them.” With great effort and much protest from your battered muscles, you get to your feet.

“Who cares? I have a million more on my shi-” Cal stops short when you step closer, stunned.

You're not sure what's come over you. Maybe it's the utter exhaustion, the limits you've driven your body to, maybe it's that you haven't stopped moving since yesterday. Since this morning you have survived not one but two duels to the death. You were nearly drowned and saw your life flash before your eyes, it's true when people say that happens. We'll call it a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

Before you know what you're doing you take the bacta patch from him, slapping his hand away. You gesture for him to hold his collar open and to the side so that you can get a clear view and he obeys, wide eyes staring up at you. With a deft and articulate hand you peel off the back and place the patch down precisely, one corner at a time.

He likes it when you get angry, when you close in for the kill, even when you look at him with fear in your eyes. Those things have become familiar and expected. This though, he doesn't know what to do with this and it shows in his quizzical expression. He looks utterly lost and the unfamiliar sensation is perplexing.

Using the pad of your thumb you smooth over each edge and it touches so slightly onto his pale skin before you lift your hand away.

Against all odds you've somehow forgotten where you are and what it is exactly that you're doing until you shift your stance and nearly trip over the obtuse and lifeless hand of the Ninth Sister. You've been picnicking and playing nurse on a battleground strewn with corpses. You're careful to keep your gaze far afield of where Choyysyk fell.

The familiar look of horror and disgust passes over you and the Eleventh Brother is set right again.

“After your reconditioning, things like this won't bother you anymore. You'll be free. You'll see, it's way better.” He wraps his hand around your wrist a little too tight and the moment is snuffed out like candle flame.

Your eyes dart over to your lightsaber resting beside him, though not unnoticed. In a flash you cross your arm awkwardly under the one he's got a hold of in a mad grab for the weapon. In the quick motion your cheek bumps his. You made your move just half a second too late as Cal uses the Force to send your saber off into the distance, beyond the treeline.

“I'll get you a nice red one that'll suit you much better.” His grip on your wrist becomes vice-like. In defense, you plug your thumb into the same wound you had just been tending. He lets go and when you pull out your finger the bandage looks as though it's being sucked into the gaping hole. He heaves forward and lets out a hoarse groan that transitions seamlessly into laughter. You manage to pull away and stumble backwards.

Your foot touches his Inquisitor's saber that you had discarded earlier. When you look up he's clutching his wound. The Inquisitor struggles with the intense pain in a battle for composure. As a certainty, he succeeds and swallows the discomfort like a pill. His forward stride is slow but deliberate. There's no rush for this inevitability.

“Go ahead, pick it up. You'd might as well get used to handling it. I'm defenseless after all. It would be so easy.” the sing-song tone of his voice irks you terribly.

There's one weapon between two combatants. If he takes it up you're as good as captured, or worse. It may cost you your freedom, your very life, but you refuse. Nothing would please Cal more than if you used an Inquisitor's weapon, his weapon, to win. Even if it's against him, if he loses he still wins. It's not happening. 

“I won't. I'm never touching that again.” You've both shifted back into your customary adversarial roles. The provoker and the provoked, the hero and the villain, the Jedi and the Sith. 

“I don't need it. Not for you.” You feign confidence in an attempt to impugn his arrogance and convince the Inquisitor to abandon his weapon. Level the playing field. It's almost too easy.

“So you want to get up close and personal this time. Fine with me.” Inquisitor Kestis can never turn down a chance to make things interesting. His voice is as impish as his grin. His discarded lightsaber flits into his hand and with slow and deliberate movements he makes sure you see him clip it to the back of his belt, with no intention of using it. Scout's honor.

You land a front kick square in his middle and Cal curls in on himself slightly. Before he can recover you catch him with an elbow on the side of the head that splits his eyebrow. You imagine the sound of rattling marbles because you know his brain just got rocked. Following up on your chain of attack you attempt a legsweep but he adjusts his stance so that his knee buckles. Perhaps by force of will alone, he refuses to go down.

He's awake now and the brawl is just beginning. Each time you raise a limb in opposition or defense it feels as though he's used slow on you again but you're sure he hasn't. Your body needs rest but it will get neither until this business is through. You draw focus from your nearly tapped well of Force energy.

Bruises are forming already on your forearms and shins as you block one strike after another. You're on the defensive yet again in the face of his tenacity. He feels like he's in control and it makes him easy to manipulate around the battleground. Where does he get the energy for this? 

You can't pinpoint exactly where he's thrown your lightsaber but you feel it call out to you from a specific direction at least. You dodge and sidestep every which way to bring yourself closer to your weapon. 

“Where are you taking us, Y/N? Are you looking for something? The way back to the Jedi relic?” He's teasing you. You'd never realized how passionately you hate rhetorical questions until you met the Eleventh Brother. He sees your bid but makes no move to unsheathe his own weapon because he's a cocky bastard.

You swore you were done running but once you enter the treeline this fight takes on a familiar feeling of cat and mouse. And now as you jump and weave through the jungle brush your chances of being caught and devoured have increased tenfold, but at least so have the Inquisitor's. 

You pull back on a tall elastic sapling and with a twang it whips Cal in the side. You trap him in a knot of vines that inconvenience him at best. He emerges from the tangle angrier than before. These tricks may be working against you. 

“Stop running! When are you going to accept that you're not a Jedi, Y/N? You never were!” The frustration in his voice is building. “And now you can be something better! Something free!”

The darkness in front of you is illuminated by a cluster of flame beetles. As you duck beneath them, narrowly avoiding their frothing pincers, you knock them into each other. Their flustered buzzing indicates the ignition sequence of an imminent and fiery combustion.

“You keep saying that!” You huff out a wheezy laugh, “How do you talk so much with the Emperor's collar tight around your neck?” 

Normally he likes it when you sass him but you can tell that quip stung. You don't give him time to respond before you deplete your reserves further by using the Force to send the beetles speeding into Cal's face like incendiary grenades. 

The beetles detonate one after the other and each blast knocks Cal like a ragdoll in one direction and then another against the nearby trees. You use this moment to widen the distance between you and narrow the one between you and your saber. 

That was your last bit of Force energy. You've been scraping the bottom of the barrel for quite some time and you only feel the emptiness after it's gone. Your only weapons now are your fists and your wits. And your lightsaber, if you ever find it. 

Ahead, you hear the roaring sound of running water and for some reason it fills you with hope. You emerge from the trees into a clearing. A small body of water streams over the edge of a nearby cliff and creates a light fog in the night air. Rocks and boulders jut from the pool at the base of the waterfall and like something from a legend your lightsaber rests on centermost stone. Waiting for someone worthy to pluck it from the alter. 

You launch yourself forward when you hear Cal crashing through the trees behind you, growling and cursing to himself. 

You're wading through knee deep water, rushing towards your saber. Somehow the water is freezing compared to the tropical humidity of the rest of the planet. The shock to your system is nothing compared to the urgency you feel to reach your weapon. With regret, you think of all the moments leading up to this now when you called on the Force for menial and wasteful things. If you had the time to meditate for even just a minute you might have been able to call your saber to your hand.

You're up to your waist in cold frothing water when you hear the hum of a lightsaber on the bank behind you. You don't turn to see what you know is there and instead you push harder to reach your goal. Your progress is slow as you force your drained muscles battle the current of the waterfall. Just a little further.

Your heart sinks like a stone into the pit of your stomach when your beautiful golden lightsaber wiggles in place before flying off its pedestal through the air like a missile. You have to duck out of its way or it may have gone right through you. 

When you turn the Eleventh Brother holds his own live weapon in one hand and yours lands snuggly in the other. This is a scene you've observed several times now and each time is more difficult than the last. You haven't laid a finger on your own lightsaber since Zeffo and that feels like a crime. 

“It's this! You're so attached to this thing and it's holding you back. Making you think you're something you're not.” He's squeezing the deactivated hilt as though it's wronged him somehow. 

With your palms raised, defenseless, you begin wading to the water's edge. You see his mind's eye, you have to reach him before he has time to act.

“Cal, wait. Let's talk about this.” You've made it to just below your knees. 

“I don't think so. You're going to thank me for this.” 

“No, dont!” 

He tosses your Master's lightsaber in the air like a batter pitching for himself. Cal flicks his wrist and with a neat upward sweep the weapon is sliced in two. You shield your eyes from the blinding pop and when you look again there are two smoking pieces of scrap metal at the Inquisitor's feet. 

Sure, your heart is broken but that feeling will come later. In this moment the rage and anger you feel takes over and whether he's armed or not you charge the Eleventh Brother and knock him to the ground.

“Bastard!”

He was expecting this to break you. You would shatter into a hundred pieces and he would scoop them up and put them back together in a way the suits his vision of you. He did not expect that you would sit on top of him and pummel his face with your fists like a gorilla and so it takes him a few seconds to defend himself. Time enough for you get a few good shots in. His mouth is bloody.

He spits red into your face and uses the distracting wave of disgust that passes over you to grab your wrist and roll you over. 

“I'M A JEDI!” You cry out and strain under the weight of him as he struggles to control you. 

“Saying that doesn't make it true!” This coming from the man who's decided it's your destiny to become an Inquisitor. The absurd hypocrisy of his statement pushes you over a line and despite yourself you begin to laugh. Has he finally done it, have you snapped? 

For someone that breaks out into maniacal fits of unsettling laughter regularly Cal seems unprepared when it's your turn. He's worried he went too far and broke his favorite toy. 

“You son of a bitch!You're not getting your way!” You wriggle one arm free and jab him hard in his bad shoulder. The two of you tussle back and forth in the dirt.

Desperation and exhaustion dictate the rules of this engagement. Skill, ability, even the Force has no place in deciding the outcome here. Grit and determination are the only weapons each of you has left. 

Cal sits on your chest and when he wraps his hands around your throat you know that he's no longer trying to detain you. Your legs kick uselessly behind him and he only squeezes harder when you pound on his injured shoulder again. It means nothing to him when you rake your fingernails across his face. You expect it to make him angry but when you look into his eyes you see instead a great sadness. Their piercing yellow gaze is glassed over with tears and as he hovers over you one salty droplet falls into your mouth. 

You take small undignified gasps as you fight to squeeze your fingers in between his hands and your neck. You start feel your pulse in your lips and sounds start to cut out around you.

You refuse to let his crying face be the last thing you see and so you cast your eyes about for something, anything that could save your life. Beside your head is one half of your Master's lightsaber, burnt wires spill out like guts and amongst them is the brilliant sheen of the long yellow kyber crystal that made the whole mechanism functional. 

The clean slice that had cleaved the weapon also created a long sharp edge on the crystal within. Cal is somewhere else, wrapped up in his mourning of you before you're even gone. He's basically talking to himself.

“No one would have been able to stop us. Not Second Sister, not Vader, not even the Emperor! But you had to be so stubborn!!” 

Your numbing fingers grasp at the crystal and before Cal realizes what's happening you wrap your hand around it and stab it into his eye. 

He falls backward, screaming. The crystal sliced your hand but you can barely feel it. For the second time today you narrowly avoid death and desperately gulp lungfuls of life giving air. Your blurry eye sight refocuses with every inhale. 

You see Cal standing hunched over. Red dots speckle the ground at his feet and with each passing second they pile and collect into a bloody puddle endlessly running from his eye. 

The crystal wasn't long. Not long enough at least to get a strong grip and reach his brain. A sick wave of gratification battles the disappointment you feel at his survival. It wasn't disfigurement you were aiming for.

You lay on the wet ground coughing and still gasping for air. You don't have the strength to stand, you can't even sit up. The most you can manage is leaning to one side on your elbow so you can watch Cal wreathe and simper in pain. You wait for the laughter. If he's not dead then he'll be laughing at this. 

He doesn't disappoint. It isn't uproarious or wild the way it's been before. His muffled sobs shift back and forth between demented chuckles and moans. He must be so happy with you. He was right after all, you are full of surprises. 

Your mind is screaming at you to get up and finish the job but the numbness in your fingers and toes is spreading. Your head is swimming and you struggle to keep your eyelids open. Darkness creeps in at the edges and you wonder if you're dying. Cal straightens up, chest heaving as he battles the pain, and you see the tip of your bright yellow kyber crystal jutting out from his head. The silver light of the moon plays tricks with colors at night but you swear it flashes red before everything goes dark.


	5. The Fortress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He can be very devoted in his convictions. He was when he was in your position. Like I'm sure you are now.” Trilla pauses before finally revealing the purpose of this unpleasant repartee. “I'm here because I want information from you. The holocron, your crewmates. Cere Junda. I want them all. Is it correct to assume you believe you won't give them to me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had an ending planned for this story and honestly when the time came to write it out I realized what a bummer it was. So I made another one and I scrapped that too. The good news is I think I've figured out something satisfying and I don't know how many more chapters it will take to get there. 
> 
> Thank you so much as always for reading and for the excellent feedback! It's just the best and it makes me really glad to share this with you all! 
> 
> !!Please be warned that this chapter contains forms of physical and psychological torture!!
> 
> Enjoy!

It's dark and cramped. Your head is swimming. Once you hear the steady hum of an engine you next feel the subtle vibrations of it on your back. You're propped up against something, your knees are bent and your feet won't come apart. When your eyelids become unstuck you see before you a wall of darkness speckled in blinking lights and switches. Unease begins to bubble in your chest until you remind yourself to maintain a level head. When you attempt to sit up, your wrists are fastened together.

The air smells filtered but cut sharp with the metallic tang of dried blood. A scent you can't escape lately.You don't know how long it's been but the aches, scrapes, cuts and bruises have had time to settle in and get angry. Every inch of you hurts and with great effort you rearrange yourself to face forward. 

Your eyes go wide when the pieces fall into place one after another. The slice across your palm stings and you hear the quiet squelch of Cal's eye in your memory.

You're caught. He got you. 

You're crammed into his V1 TIE fighter like a piece of luggage. 

His seated silhouette bisects the the spherical windshield. Before you stretches the endless expanse of space itself. Stars streak by in thin white lines as you hurtle through the inky expanse. The cockpit is dark and your captor turns his head slightly as he tracks your shuffling, it's his good side. He doesn't think you'll try anything but better to know where you are. You can't make out any details around you save for the glowing switchboard in front of him. 

You know what's coming next but aren't ready for it. Your heart stutters and your breath quickens when you hear him. 

“There she is. Hi, gorgeous.

I wasn't sure you were gonna wake up. I did what I could but you know I'm no good with that stuff.” The worst of your visible injuries have been slapped haphazardly with bacta patches. The ones that aren't peeling off have been placed ineffectively but the sentiment is not completely lost on you. 

If any of the plethora of injuries you inflicted on the Inquisitor are even a mild discomfort to him, he doesn't show it. In fact he's projecting a calm and content energy. His victory over you is all the medicine he needs. 

“Wher-” You first attempt at speaking manifests in a raspy croak. The undignified sounds draws a raking pain through your vocal chords and it takes the wind out of you. Without a mirror you know your neck is dark with bruising, being strangled to near death twice a day will do that. You clear your throat and the burn of it makes you see stars. 

“Where are you taking me?” You manage to croak. It's quiet but within the small confines of the ship he hears you. 

“Don't ask me stupid questions, you can barely speak... You know where we're going.” He flips two switches above his head. 

It wouldn't surprise you if your mind was playing tricks but you'd swear a brief red glint shines out from the darkness when he cranes his neck. The motion is cut short as Cal goes stiff and sucks in a sharp breath. His gloved fist on the dashboard clenches and releases methodically as he focuses his breathing. It seems to you that the Inquisitor is in a great deal of pain. Good. 

You have one final card to play. The likelihood of its success is low and you are loathe to make the attempt but you know what they say about desperate times. 

“Cal, untie me.” You rasp. “You don't have to do this. We can go somewhere else, anywhere else. We'll go together. Just me and you...please.”

His warm chuckle is abruptly cut short as he hisses in pain. His hand hovers in front of his face as he fights the urge to touch his eye. After a sequence of deep regulated breathing he returns to himself. 

“It's amazing, you never give up. Hold on to that in the fortress.” His voice hints at admiration. 

“They're going to kill me, Cal. You know it.” Speaking is so painful but you're out of weapons. Every part of you is spent. 

“Maybe, but I don't think so, I think you can take it. It's just training to help you grow past what holds others back. I'll help you.” His voice is calm and silky. In another place at another time you may have been charmed by it. Here and now it fills you with dread. There's a loaded silence when you don't respond. There's no point. It's like chasing your tail with him.

“You should go back to sleep. Get as much rest as you can, you're gonna need it. We'll be coming up on Nur soon.” 

You want to say something, anything, just so he doesn't get the last word. It would almost be worth the searing discomfort if it didn't also make you feel like a petulant child. He brings out the worst in you. 

The Fortress Inquisitorius awaits you on Nur. Infamous throughout the galaxy as the birthplace of Imperial Inquisitors. Jedi arrive as prisoners and leave as monstrous shells of their former selves, if they leave at all. The process is not mysterious. Torture can be an intense motivator. 

You lose yourself in the vastness beyond the tie's windshield and settle in. Did all the other Jedi on their way into the fortress think they would withstand this place? Did they think their Jedi training would save them? Did Cal? 

Being led by your greatest enemy, hurtling at the speed of light towards your imminent demise, you fall into a deep unconsciousness. Only because you really do need the rest. Not because Cal Kestis told you to. 

The next time you open your eyes you're blinded by an intense and direct bright light. You've heard the first moments after death described this way but you're strikingly aware of how uncomfortable and cold you feel.

The light comes away and your eyes begin to focus with great difficulty. The bright white tile of the empty room bounces the searing light back tenfold and instinctually you attempt to raise your hand to shield your face. You're met with resistance and there's a loud echoing clank of metal on metal. You're fastened upright to the most complex slab you've ever seen. This is The Chair, surely.  
There's a strange freedom in getting caught. It's as though the worst has happened and so now you have no choice but to go with the flow of events. It's out of your control and all you can do is watch and wait. Of course you expect it to get worse, there is so much for you yet to endure. You are strapped to a table in a torture fortress. But somehow the certainty of that is less frightening than the question of being chased and getting caught. It's certainly not a peace you're feeling but an alert calmness at least. 

Your senses are so overwhelmed that you can't seem to muster the anxiety that has been your constant companion for days. You mask the hollow feeling in your chest with calm and controlled confidence as your eyes dart around the room. 

From the center of the bare and vast white cell you feel a circling presence, like a hawk zeroing in on an oblivious rabbit from the air. 

The click of Imperial issued military boots echo from behind you, step by step. Your field of view is limited and so you wait patiently for the predator to reveal herself.

Trilla Suduri emerges before you, spine straight, shoulders back and chin high. She links her hands behind her back and aside from her wild eyes, everything about her appears precisely controlled and carefully tailored. She is impeccable. 

“You were expecting someone else.” It's not a question. Her accent is polished and refined and you hate to admit that it's lovely. 

Silence in the air thickens as she studies you. There's no denying that she is a terrifying presence, it's sobering effect is doubled by her confident and authoritative aura. You, however, have had the great misfortune of growing accustomed to the unsettling weight of an Inquisitors' gaze. You convince even yourself that you are unfazed. 

“He's in the infirmary. You did quite a number on our Eleventh Brother. I'm not only referring to the eye, though I will admit that was impressive.” She tugs on the wrist of each glove, ensuring the perfect fit. “He thinks very highly of you. It's almost as though you've bewitched Inquisitor Kestis.” 

“Been cursed by him more like.” You break your silence to be cantankerous. Your throat kills and you regret it. She wasn't expecting you to speak and her sudden and full attention feels sharp, like a knife against your skin. 

“He can be very devoted in his convictions. He was when he was in your position. Like I'm sure you are now.” Trilla pauses before finally revealing the purpose of this unpleasant repartee. “I'm here because I want information from you. The holocron, your crewmates. Cere Junda. I want them all. Is it correct to assume you believe you won't give them to me?” 

You say nothing, though when you silently mouth 'yes' there is no question of your answer. You hate the way all Inquisitors seem to ask themselves obvious questions just so they can be right. Is that part of the training? 

She must sense the flair of irritation because she draws in on you and suddenly you're nose to nose with the Second Sister. Her calculating and bloodshot eyes measure something inside of you. You shield yourself with as much defiance as you can muster and you will yourself to remain unblinking.

Whatever she discovers in your eyes amuses her and she adopts an air of satisfaction, as though your response was exactly what she expected. 

“You remind me of him you know.” You want to challenge her statement but don't fall for the bait. This forced comparison is the first attempt to unravel you. You expect to endure many attacks on your physical and mental fortitude during your stay in the fortress. 

“He has very high expectations of you. If you fall short it might unravel him completely.” She knows Cal is a particularly sore spot for you. 

“Don't tempt me.” You can't resist. Trilla does her best to suppress the slight curl on her lips. 

“Me? My hopes are not so lofty. You will give me the information I'm after. That's all that matters. Perhaps along the way I will learn what it is about you that Cere Junda and Cal Kestis find so special.” 

She walks around you in a perfect circle. Looking for something, waiting for something about you to jump out at her and help her understand. She scoffs, unimpressed by the time she completes her circuit.

“Let's see if your fiery spirit will keep you warm enough until I decide to begin your interrogation.” 

The Second Sister approaches the door and beeps sound from the panel beside it as she taps a series of buttons and flips a small switch. 

“Look to your training, Jedi. Learn first hand the ways you have been failed by your Order.”

Trilla struts from the room and as the door whooshes shut behind her the temperature lowers drastically and a small vent above your head releases cold air to fall over you. 

After a few minutes the tip of your nose begins to turn red and your breath comes out in foggy bursts. You shut your eyes to enter a state of meditation. It begins with emptying your mind and already it is a struggle not to wonder if you will ever come out of it. 

You're not sure how long it's been. It was night when you first arrived on Nur but whether it's been a few hours or days you can't say. You've managed to faze in and out of deep meditation, which helps pass the time and unfocus your bodily discomfort.

The overly bright lights of this holding cell haven't abated. You chase a comforting darkness behind your eyelids but its illuminated in a bright red up against the relentless brightness. 

Your nose, ears, and fingertips are numbing in the steady cold but its still preferable to the sweltering heat that's been alternating. Every few hours the cell door whirrs open to admit a repurposed Pyke torture droid. You recognize the model even if it's been painted black and red, it's old but obviously highly functional. You find the droid's gaunt face and vacant glowing eyes unsettling. When you launch into frantic questioning, it stares at you for several minutes before making a few adjustments on the temperature panel and exiting.

Each time you begin to wonder if the feeling will return to your extremities a bead of sweat trailing down your skin is not long awaited to remind you that your senses are rather acute. The back and forth is making you feverish. Your body doesn't know when it should be shivering or sweating so it does both. 

You don't even look up when you hear the door again. Instead you steel yourself for the next transition from cold to hot. 

“Jeez, it's cold in here! Have you told maintenance?” Cal rubs up and down his own arms exaggeratedly. He knows you won't respond but he never seems able to pass up an opportunity to make himself laugh. 

A rush of complex feelings wash over you and you hate to admit that you're excited to see anyone other than the Pyke droid. The reality is that each person coming through that door is worse news than the last. 

“Notice anything different about me?” he spreads his arms, putting himself on display for you. Your jaw chatters as you look him up and down then settle on examining his face. The last time you saw it clearly Cal's face was contorted in anguish and your handiwork was sticking out of his shining yellow eye. He winks at you with a brand new one. 

His damaged eye has been replaced with a cybernetic enhancement in, guess what, black and red. When he sees that you've taken note of it he looms in close and with one finger pulls down the skin below his new eye for you to have a closer look. The matte black orb makes a small mechanized zip when he rolls it around to look in every direction before the glowing crimson iris settles on you. You draw back instinctively. The Inquisitor shakes his head and blinks erratically when he steps back.

“Nice right? I can see infrared now.” Cal taps the heel of his hand against his temple to set the addition back to rights. “And it's all thanks to you. We just make each other better in all kinds of ways.”

Your eyes blow wide with outrage. True disillusionment is to believe that this man has had a positive influence on you in any way.

No matter how long it's been, your throat is far from healed. You've kept the few opportunities you've had for speech to a minimum but this is too much. When you open your mouth to speak Cal's hand hovers close to your face. You can feel heat radiating off the pad of his thumb as it hovers over you your frozen lip but never touches.

“Don't say anything.” He gestures at his own throat indicating your injury with the other hand. “I know what you're thinking anyway.” 

You hate the idea that he believes he knows your mind. Your eyes narrow and oh if looks could kill. Cal eats it up and with a tender smile he curls his fingers away from your face. 

The Eleventh Brother mimics your voice as best he can. “But Cal, that's not true! All you've done is ruin things for me and hunt me down like a dog.” He waggles his eyebrows, overly proud of himself. 

“You'd be wrong though. You know better now than before we met, what you're capable of. You've even already seen what we're capable of together. Masana Tide never had a chance, Y/N. Can you imagine what we... could-” 

When he trails off, Cal presses the thumb that had nearly touched you to his lower lip as he becomes lost in the thought.

You release a heavy sigh and your warm breath creates a cloud of vapor in the frigid air that dissipates on contact with Cal's face and brings him back to himself. He picks up his thought as though he had never paused.

“I'm not going to let you bury your potential under Jedi codes and morality. I can't.” 

The Eleventh Brother rests his head on the metallic railing beside your shoulder. The residual heat radiating off of him feels like a warm stove beside you and you can't help but lean as close to the source as your restraints will allow. Your head bobs like a buoy on stormy water as you shiver and contend with fever and hypothermia. 

Cal examines your face thoughtfully and for just a second you think you see something that's never been there before. Something far less than empathy, perhaps a mere consideration of it. 

“You are about to have a very transformative experience. I envy you.” And just like that it's vanished. His eyes are still on yours but he's looking completely through you.

The moment is gone but it's given you something to work towards. There is a seam in the facade of Inquisitor Cal Kestis. A thread come loose from the tapestry before you and with all your might you're going to yank on it. 

Since you arrived on Nur you've been doing a decent job of putting on a brave face in front of the Inquisitors. Wether they find it believable or not remains to be seen. You've known what this place is about. You know why you're here and you daresay to an extent you know what's coming. This fever, this temperature, barely eating or sleeping has turned you into a ball of exposed nerves. You're being groomed for interrogation and with no defense you're expected to give them what they want with little prompting. Though if you resist you're sure that Pyke torture droid will have something to do with convincing you to share. It's difficult to stay strong, to be hopeful in the face of this grand design where your only power to defy it comes from within yourself. 

Your voice is so small, barely audible. Cal bends his ear low to hear you more clearly. 

“Hm?” 

“Can you see the future with that new eye of yours?” It comes out hoarse, rasp but assertive. It's important to maintain confidence speaking to the Eleventh Brother, tinged with wrathfulness. This is what he admires. This is the you he will follow.

Cal doesn't know what you're getting at. He huffs and shakes his head, amused. 

“I wondered if you'd already seen what I'm going to do to this place and everyone in it. If my potential is as great as you believe.” 

“So far, only in my dreams, gorgeous.” He's obviously tickled by this show of acrimony. 

“I wanted to see you before the next part. The isolation was especially difficult for me. We both know you've got this.” 

You thought you were already in isolation. You're afraid to ask yourself what else can be done to make you feel alone here. 

The Inquisitor unfastens your restraints and you barely understand what's happening as you slide onto the floor in a heap. The chair recedes into a panel beneath the floor that seals neatly, as though it was never there. Your weary mind moves slowly as you try catalogue the available alleys of escape now that you're free from The Chair. If only you had the strength to lift yourself off the floor. 

Cal squats in front of you and dares to boop you on the nose before he straightens and turns to leave with no ceremony or theatrics that normally follow him out of a room. 

“See you in a while, crocodile.” 

His footsteps echo on the pristine floor on his way out of the room. The blindingly bright lights are finally doused though you were hoping for something more in between the searing rays and the complete darkness you find yourself in now. Cal's silhouette in the doorway is swallowed by the darkness as it whooshes shut behind him. You take back what you said about his dramatic exits. 

You listen to your hands and knees shuffle across the tiles looking, feeling for something anything in the darkness. You settle yourself in a corner as you fathom the endless potential of the vast emptiness before you. There could be anything in this room an inch in front of your nose and you'd never know. That possibility is thrilling even though you're aware with great certainty that save your own presence, this cell is completely and utterly empty.


	6. A Knife in the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The dark side surprises people. You think it surrounds you, and it does, but you believe you can keep it at bay, protect yourself from allowing it to taint you so long as you're pure of heart. The truth is that it's something you carry within you. It sprouts and grows strong inside you little by little, in the things you do and say until it's all you have. Then there are no other choices but to continue nourishing it because without it there's nothing of you left.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you thank you as always for reading and for the glorious feedback! It's so amazing to hear how much you all are enjoying the story and I'm motivated like crazy when you reach out! So thanks again! 
> 
> Please be warned that this chapter contains references to torture and the after effects of torture as well as reference to addiction. 
> 
> Enjoy!

You've never cared about your appearance. You've rarely considered what others see when they look at you but for the hope that you appear capable and nonthreatening, like all great Jedi. 

Growing up in the Jedi temple, vanity was a passing thought and not something to be considered in the curriculum of galactic peacekeepers. You remember a time when you became entranced by your own blurred reflection on the pristine marble floor of the library. Later that day you asked another padawan if they thought you were pretty and they weren't sure of how to answer other than “I think so”. It was one of the last times you remember wondering about it at all. Looking down at the burned and mottled skin of your hand and forearm you can't help but wonder what the rest of you looks like now. 

You took the long elegance of your hands for granted. You try to think back to what your hands looked like before when you still had all your fingernails. Do those grow back?

You're proud to say that the first true interrogation within the Fortress Inquisitorius proved fruitless work for the Second Sister and her dreadful repurposed Pyke droid. But the terrible sizzle and quiet pop of electricity and the smell of your own burnt skin are memories that have burrowed deep into your mind. You will carry the mark of withstanding the Imperial Inquisition to the end of your days. 

Suddenly the modest nature of the Inquisitors' uniform makes a lot of sense. Every inch of skin from the neck down dressed all in black material to cover the atrocious scarring. You are learning that this transformation from Jedi to Inquisitor occurs both above and below the skin.

You try not to relive the terrible moment and yet you hear Trilla Suduri's sophisticated inflections in your mind saying all the tedious things torturers say to their captives. 

“I can make it all stop if you only give me what I want. You think you're strong but this is foolish. Submit now and save yourself the unnecessary anguish before you inevitably succumb.” 

She talked so much you actually even learned some things you hadn't known, as you wondered who was interrogating who. 

“Even your resolute new master, Cere Junda, cracked under the pressure. She gave us up in the blink of an eye or did she neglect to mention it?” 

This was obviously a more personal matter for Trilla than you were aware of, one with history you were not privy to. 

The Second Sister was attempting to create a wedge between you and Cere. While her secrecy stung you could understand that Cere's past was hers to revisit and share in her own time. The nature of your relationship had grown from reluctant tolerance into earned trust but that didn't mean either of you played at being open books.

“Isn't it only fair that the favor be returned? She would understand, having been through it herself.” 

There were several moments when you feigned compliance just to make that fucking droid pause for even a second. 

“Wait! I do have something that you might find useful...about Cere...” 

Trilla shoved the droid out of the way and stepped in close, indicating with a nod to proceed. 

“Cere Junda...makes the worst caff I've ever tasted. She's just awful at it, burns it every time. Or did you know that already? I wasn't aware you were previously acquainted.” 

This Inquisitor did not share her associate's sense of humor. While the pause in the droid's horrendous process was almost as refreshing as the frustration on Trilla's face, the joke only served to make matters worse for you once its ministrations were resumed. 

You shut the memory down as the lifeless yellow eyes and disturbingly humanoid face of the repurposed Pyke droid sends shivers down your spine and causes all your wounds to ache anew.

Your cell has returned to its state of frigid and utter blackness as you sit in silent contemplation.  
The cold tile floor, that until now has been a relentless and unkind surface on which you exist, is actually a comfort against the aching skin of your burned arm. 

You've sat in impermeable darkness for so long that the feeling of it moves back and forth between the comfort of an old friend's enveloping embrace and the chill of a prey item exposed and vulnerable in a wide open field. Somehow both are true. Sometimes you feel eyes on you. Peering from every which way, so penetrating they can see right into you. Your bones, even your thoughts aren't spared from their relentless gaze. Other times you feel so alone in the vastness, desperate to be seen.

You think of the dark side of the Force, the chaotic order of tightly woven paradoxes, savage and awe-inspiring. 

Sleep is impossible, they won't allow it, and so delirium skirts your periphery. You swear there are even darker shapes circling you and the silence has become so deafening that you have no choice but to fill it with your own conversation. Eventually you don't question whether or not the voices answering are imagined. 

In your mind you see yourself sitting on the edge of a cliff. The cold air that both numbs and tingles your skin is a chilly sea breeze instead of ventilated air that smells vaguely of refrigerant. It's night and you can just make out the roll of the waves in the distance shifting rhythmically in the darkness. You've transported yourself to this peaceful place. 

When you reach out into the Force the connection is weak. It's something that cannot be extinguished completely because the force is everywhere and in everything but you are certain there are dampeners nearby to your cell. You're starving for food and sleep but connectivity to the Force is a particular emptiness that echoes louder than your stomach or your mind. 

Loneliness is a constant companion. The final thread that holds you together is fitting to snap without a sound after watching all threads before it go this way when you feel a presence behind you. Throughout your confinement you've considered this real possibility several times already before settling on the reality that you're very alone. This time, however, it's the gentle press of someone's lower back up against your own that lets you know this time is different. When you snap straight your shoulders brush theirs. The ocean breeze of your mental landscape passes over you both.

The comfort radiating off this presence is rich and full, you would know it anywhere. You wonder if you've died and this is how you become one with the Force. 

“What have the Jedi taught you?” Your dead Master's voice is low. Perhaps he is here to guide you. 

“To look outward. To serve others and protect innocence. To keep peace and maintain balance in the Force. We are a counterweight against the heaviness of the dark.” The answer feels meaningful to you though you spout the words like an intelligent bird.

“And that's what you've done?” He doesn't sound half as kind as you remember, but exactly as contemplative. The words stall in your throat but you have nothing else to hide from him. 

“It's not.”

“Tell me why.” 

“Because...” You smell the musty vegetation of the humid Kashyyyk jungle and it's like you're there again. A spike of rage passes through you when you are forced to relive the blood curdling sound of Choyssyk's final moments. In your unbalanced mind you hear the Ninth Sister's final gurgling breaths. 

“I did it for myself. I enjoyed doing it and I would do it again. I wish I could do it one hundred more times.” Once you start, the truth comes pouring out like a crack in a dam. A tear rolls down your cheek even though you can't spare a single drop of hydration. 

“You're frightened by that part of yourself. You shouldn't be. That struggle is what makes a person truly live.” 

“A person? Not a Jedi?” You're asking for it. There's only one thing he can say that's the truth. While you'll never feel ready to hear it you are also desperate to. 

“You aren't a Jedi, Y/N.” Your Master has no reason to deceive you. You've thought the words thousands of times but the finality in his voice, to hear them spoken aloud, makes it real and it's true Though the pain of it is staggering, a weight lifts from you as that particular battle is ended. All you can do is nod your acceptance, sitting in the dark.

“The dark side surprises people. You think it surrounds you, and it does, but you believe you can keep it at bay, protect yourself from allowing it to taint you so long as you're pure of heart. The truth is that it's something you carry within you. It sprouts and grows strong inside you little by little, in the things you do and say until it's all you have. Then there are no other choices but to continue nourishing it because without it there's nothing of you left.” 

You didn't expect that your Master would have such pointed insight on the dark side. You suppose this battle is one every Jedi faces in their own way, though from the accuracy of his description you would swear he was talking about you specifically. As a production of your wavering mind he does have intimate access to your subconscious even though that's true to your memory of the man. He could always read you like a book. 

The salty sea air soaks into your pores and hair, drying them out. You wipe the tears off your cheeks and the salt there stings the blistered skin of your fingers and hand. When you let the injury sit below your heart too long you feel your pulse in each fingertip. You rest your hand on your opposite shoulder so that gravity will alleviate the intense thump of your own blood. 

Ocean waves crash in the distance. It's quiet for a long time as you digest your Master's words. They weigh on you heavily and eventually you lash out under the discomfort. You've come at this obstacle from every angle and the only way is through.

“Alright! I've failed at carrying on your teachings, at being a Jedi. There is a darkness in me because I can't deny that I enjoy... hurting people that deserve it. But that doesn't make me capable of hunting and killing people I care about. I'll never betray the Mantis. I may not be a Jedi but I'm no Inquisitor; and I never will be. No amount of torture will change that.”

“My teachings?” Your Master ignores the bulk of your fervent platitude. His placid voice is tinged with amusement. 

The air shifts and suddenly the serene oceanside imaginings become chaotic and spoiled by your tumultuous mind. Like blowing the dust off the cover of an old book, reality is revealed to you.

When you whip around to face him you're not sure what you expect to see in the darkness but the small glow of his mechanized red eye pierces you like a needle. It vanishes and reappears as Cal blinks at you, trying to understand. When he speaks again your heart nearly seizes in your chest. 

“If you could see the look on your face” the red dot scans up and down over you. “Did you think I was your dusty old Master?” 

When you don't answer he barrels onward. It's worse somehow that the conversation of the past few minutes has been with a flesh and blood person rather than a mental projection of one. 

“One thing I can teach you is that strength, power and companionship from the dark side is the greatest reward of being and Inquisitor. I don't care who they point me at if it means I can get closer to it.”

The overwhelming gratification in that moment of delicious revenge at ending the 9th sister comes rushing back to you. It was snuffed out in an instant by the horror of what you had done but so often a person forgets the downward spiral of coming down when the high was so intoxicating. You hate to admit that you understand the compulsion to chase that feeling. It disturbs you that Cal is finally beginning to make sense. 

You crack under the pressure and begin a hearty fit of chuckling. You lay back on the tiles and hug your sides as your cheeks start to burn from laughing so hard. You weren't sure if you'd use these muscles ever again. 

Even though you can't see Cal's face you imagine it clearly in your mind. Seeing more of his own behaviors in you must be deliciously validating. Why not give him more of what he came here for? 

“Don't you just want to tousle Trilla's hair or something, wrinkle her uniform? Who spit in her caff?” You follow the floating red light around the room though it's steadily trained on you. “She's one of the people I wouldn't mind giving what's deserved.”

“Oh yeah? Am I one of those people too?” 

“Top of the list.” You answer in a heartbeat with a playful tone. His warm chuckle rings in your bones. 

“Trilla's strong. You might need help.” 

You bolt upright. Your nostrils flare over the bait he's dropped. You don't know if you should go straight for it, he is a hunter after all. You tamp down the flare of excitement and try to skirt around answering directly.

“You really are just in this for the fight. Is that all you care about? Bloodshed? Losing yourself in the dark?”

“What else is there?” The question is heartbreakingly genuine. “I'm a weapon, Y/N, an attack dog. They point me at something and I turn it red.” 

A knot twists inside you and at first you don't recognize the feeling. It's sympathy.

You're a prisoner in this terrible place because of Cal. You may even die here if you continue to reject their overt attempts at persuasion. Somehow it doesn't seem as bad as the effect it's had on him. He's put you through so much pain and anguish but against your better judgement you sympathize with the Eleventh Brother in this moment. The Empire took the person he was before and made him into an object.

You lock onto the disembodied red light and picture the rest of him in your mind.You see the starchy crisp suit and black boots, so clean your distorted reflection shines back at you. 

When you smell the leather of his gloves you see the scarlet red palms reaching for your throat. 

“That's what you want for me?” The way you ask makes you feel small. You hate that feeling more than Trilla's torture.

This is the longest conversation you've ever had with Cal before the crazy kicked in or you started tearing each other apart. You wish you could see his face, you don't know what it looks like when he's being introspective. It's not fair that he can see how your eyebrows pinch together while you wait for him to gather his words but you can't see the feathering muscles in his jaw as he ponders.

When he doesn't respond you ask an even harder question. 

“What do you want for yourself?”

A huff sounds out from the darkness behind you. You had been appealing to him in the wrong direction.  
Without saying anything, the small sound indicates that he hasn't considered the answer to your question before now. 

He's thinking so hard you can almost hear the wheels turning in his head. 

“I want to see the fire inside you grow and consume everything. Absolutely everything. I want to get burned up in it.” 

This conversation is exhausting. You lay back on the tiles and stretch out like a starfish spreading your limbs in every direction. When you look up into the blackness Cal's red eye is there above you. In your mind the singular light multiplies before your eyes and suddenly the comfort of a starry night sky twinkles all around you. It's marvelous and it makes your pain feel small and distant. 

“You're a moth.” You laugh at the stars, knowing he's one of them. Listening. 

“I wish you could see yourself when you fight. Then maybe you'd understand.” He's close but out of all the stars in your night sky the red one has flickered out. He must be facing away from you.

“You get this look; in your eyes, in the set of your mouth. Your brow smooths out because there's no question or confusion only surety. Your instincts take over and you push past what the Jedi taught you. It shows in blinding little flickers of light. You're a killer, Y/N. It's perfect and beautiful but it's trapped inside you.” 

He sounds drunk. For so long you couldn't shake the frightening image of his face from your nightmares but oh what you wouldn't give to see his face right now. You've seen him look at you before, presumably dumbstruck and lovesick, and it would send your stomach churning. He thought he knew you but you couldn't see how and that felt revolting.

Looking up at the stars, set up as best you can recall them, listening to him now feels different. Before the intimacy he claimed existed between you was imagined and completely one sided. Nothing is more frustrating than a person telling you what you're thinking and feeling, but as he describes the subtleties of your instinctual and most primal self you know he's right. He sees you. You share the greatest intimacy of knowing and being known. 

Then in the truest Cal Kestis fashion he snuffs out the reluctant affection you feel and replaces it with a hot writing fury. 

“Watching your master die like that. You know it's because you fought your instincts, right? You thought too much about what the right thing to do was instead of just doing it. You had a weapon and you didn't use it because Jedi value the lives of others above their own. They can't even save each other, it's pathetic.” 

You don't even try to fight the anger, all your walls have been torn down and everything inside you is real and raw. You're standing and you cast your arm out feeling in the direction of his voice. You're imprisonment has made you weak, you don't know what it is you plan to do when you get your hands on him but there's nothing driving you now but your instincts. 

The Inquisitor watches you reach gracelessly in the darkness before he reaches out and wraps his fingers around your wrists and pulls you hard towards him. You nearly trip over your own feet but he's holding you up. 

“I saw it all. I felt what you felt when I touched your lightsaber. You felt pathetic and you were right. You could have saved him and you didn't. But you've changed Y/N, you're still changing.” 

You feel the heat of his breath on your face as you struggle in his grasp.You're so angry it's blinding. The stars are snuffed out and you can't even see Cal's eye in front of you. You have the strength of a dried leaf. You're furious and helpless and the two feelings exacerbate one another until you feel like you're going to explode. The rage is overwhelming and you're breathing hard and fast until you begin to hyperventilate.

Several long moments pass as the sound of your wracked breathing bounces back at you from the walls of your enclosure. When you begin to even out again you lift your face from where you had buried it into Cal's shoulder leaving a clammy wet spot. Your vision has returned and the small red light of Cal's eye blinks nervously in and out of existence inches in front of you.

As you straighten the tips of your noses brush.

“I hate you.” your voice is cracked and weak.

His next words are practically spoken into your mouth. 

“I know.” 

Cal loosens his grip on your hands and you slide onto the floor in a pile. It's quiet for a long time and you lay out again, arms akimbo. All the energy you had is gone. You try to call the stars back but your mind is too exhausted. The vast empty hollowness in you chest is comforting in a different way. A worse one. 

You can't tell if your eyes are open or closed anymore. It's all the same engulfing blackness; in your ears, up your nose, in your mouth when you talk, between your toes, soaked in to every pore of your skin. The blackness of everything and nothing.

“Can I be honest with you, Cal?” 

“Yeah.” You think he sounds awkward but you know that's one feeling on the long list of emotions he is incapable of. 

This is it. This is all your cards laid out. Your final gamble before you crumble in on yourself like a collapsing star and disappear. He made a faint suggestion of it before but you were too suspicious to believe him. It's not his test that must be passed but yours.

“No one's ever asked me what I want either but I'm going to tell you anyway. I want to stalk, hunt, and kill every stinking agent the Galactic Empire has to offer, the way you did me. From the lowliest stormtrooper up past the Second Sister, through Darth Vader, to the Emperor himself.” 

You tell yourself this is part of a ruse to manipulate the Eleventh Brother, a dash of confidence and a heavy helping of wrathfulness, his favorite recipe. In your heart you know that you mean every word and the idea of that is less frightening than it's ever been. You swore it wouldn't but this place has changed you. 

You pray he will take this bait. You've laid it out the way he taught you. 

The red spark of his eye grows so bright you have to squint before it dims. 

“There's that look again.” He sounds like he's smiling and for the first time in what feels like a lifetime you grasp and hold on to a small ember of hope. “You know I can't say no when you look at me like that.”


	7. Not So Great Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "In your mind, young Cal represents all the Jedi who were undone here. You see around you the spectres of the Jedi that were, mist from the air collects into their forms.  
> You see Masana Tide, before she became the Ninth Sister. She's huddled in the corner. With her knees tucked into her chest, Tide makes her massive form as small as possible.  
> You see bright faced Cal going bravely to The Chair. His burning eyes are set with a determination you've seen in them yourself many times.  
> Behind the very real Second Sister you see your mind's projection of her former self banging on the cell door, wasting effort and valuable energy. You don't blame her for trying. Not a bit.  
> You can't see Cere but you feel her strapped in with you. The broken whisper of her voice is pleading. You press your lips together in a tight line to make sure you aren't saying the words yourself.  
> “I'll tell you. I'll tell you where they are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you thank you thank youuuuuuuu as always, for reading and for the ABSOLUTELY AMAZING feedback! I can't tell you how happy it makes me and how excited I get to hear from you! 
> 
> I've adjusted the tags again, so please be warned! 
> 
> Hold on to your butts and above all, ENJOY!

Before you know it, you're back in The Chair. Your physical strength and frankly your mental acuity are slowly flickering in and out, and so resistance is not an option as the ghoulish figure of the torture droid lifts you into the dreaded mechanism. To have that wretched droid's appendages on you makes every nerve ending light up with revulsion. Like the period at the end of a sentence, the deafening clank of your restraints locking in resound with finality. 

You struggle to trust the things you hear and see as you've begun to deteriorate and are now prone to small breaks in reality. You've been scraped so raw that your instincts from second to second are all you've got. 

Depending solely on your instincts however, has opened some strange doors for your senses. In small flickering moments you feel flushes of Force energy. They come in sporadic bursts and other times in far between breaths tat you gulp down greedily. It allows you to reach out and draw power from beyond your cell. The energy in the fortress feels restless and jittering with tumult. Exactly as though a natural power beat upon the facility, battered in a massive storm. You draw the strife inward and it feeds something ugly inside you. 

You don't know how much time has passed since your last conversation with the Eleventh Brother but your guess would be a lifetime. The spark of hope he left you with has grown smaller and smaller over time and all you can do is pray he's been moved to action on the other side. 

The lights sear your eyes and you feel like a cave creature come up to the surface for the very first time. Your overloaded senses compensate in the form of a consistent high frequency hum, it makes a natural enemy of the low level but relentless ache in your head. Your instincts are begging you to return to the comfortable darkness in your cell. Your body craves the merciful nothingness. 

A muffled voice addresses you and you aren't sure how long you've been part of this conversation without your knowledge. You lift your head from the clouded reverie and the eloquent voice of the Second Sister becomes clearer and clearer as your eyes focus on her sharp features. 

Her eyes are wider than usual and her voice is tinged with frantic energy. 

“This is your last chance, Jedi. Tell me what you know before it's too late. He's coming.” 

Your brain stutters like an engine struggling to start up, you imagine black smoke pouring from your ears. For a moment your mind even tricks you into seeing small tufts of the stuff in the air.

“He....Cal?” You attempt to fill in the blanks. 

You're nourished by a small breath of Force energy. The lights above you flicker and the whirring of machinery cuts out then resumes almost imperceptibly as backup generators are brought to life. The power of the Force dampeners nearby sputter and resume. 

Trilla stares at you in stunned silence and her eye twitches before she barrels past her frustration. 

“No. Not Cal. Lord Vader is coming to interrogate you himself. He wants that holocron and I promise he won't be as gentle as I've been.” You have to be imagining it though you can smell the emotion in the air, rippling off her in waves. She's scared. 

It's difficult for you to muster any feeling at all, let alone more fear over a boogeyman. Not that you don't believe Darth Vader is real, or a horror, it's just hard to scare you these days. What can he do to bring you closer to the edge you've been teetering on for weeks? 

You imagine the dark imposing silhouette coming towards you and it's only as frightening as the figures that swirl about you in your cell. You were frightened of them at first but have reached a point now where you welcome the company.

She hadn't gotten the reaction she was hoping for. “He's going to reach into your mind and tear through it until he finds what can be useful to him and mash the rest like rotten fruit.” 

Contrasting her potent unease, Trilla finds your nonchalance irritating. She attempts a new angle to rile you. This is how you know she's desperate.

“When he is finished with you he'll start in on the Eleventh Brother.” You didn't expect it to work so you surprise even yourself when your attention is piqued. 

“Lord Vader will finish what I started. Or hadn't you noticed Cal's been a tad too busy for your visits?” There she goes with the obnoxious questions, it's only a matter of time with these Inquisitors. Some of Trilla's confidence is returned when she sees the look on your face. Her feline features sharpen with smugness.

“Inquisitor Kestis has been submitted for reconditioning. The line between interrogating and fraternizing with prisoners can sometimes bring an Inquisitor a bit too close to the flame. In this case I believe you would agree.” 

When you feel a flush of hurt spike in your chest you sharply remind yourself that Cal Kestis is why you're here in this fortress. You were his prisoner before you were Trilla's. You tell yourself he doesn't deserve your sympathy.

You've accepted your instincts that lean toward taking life, it's been the epiphany that's both and cursed and released you. You cannot however, undo deep training of an entire lifetime to think outwardly and of others. A lifetime of Jedi teaching that you've expected yourself to drop like a hot stone.

Someone brought Cal here and put him through the horrors you've learned. He bent until he broke and it wasn't enough because they're doing it again. How dare they.

The fortress' power flutters and you take a deep breath of Force power. When you look at Trilla again wonder if she's the one who'd captured Jedi padawan Cal Kestis. Your hate for her grows stronger and you feel it push through your veins, giving you strength. The heady sense of power makes you dizzy.

You next consider who it was that had caught Trilla and even that it was Cere's fault. Not that it's your place to, but you instantly forgive Cere for being unable to endure the Fortress Inquisitorius. You haven't cracked but that doesn't mean you won't. 

“I'm the one who first brought him in you know.” You would wonder if she can read minds if she hadn't already tortured you for information that would be easaily read. The pride in her voice makes your insides boil. 

“He certainly put up a fight, the battle was exquisite.” She refocuses her gaze from the wall behind you to look pointedly into your eyes. “He took so very long to turn. Even he became a devoted member of our Order, eventually. But even the sharpest tools must sometimes be maintenanced.” 

You can't help the wrenching of your heart as you consider the horror of surviving incarceration in this fortress only to endure it again in the same lifetime. In your mind, young Cal represents all the Jedi who were undone here. You see around you the spectres of the Jedi that were, mist from the air collect into their forms.

You see Masana Tide, before she became the Ninth Sister. She's huddled in the corner. With her knees tucked into her chest Tide makes her massive form as small as possible. 

You see bright faced Cal going bravely to The Chair. His burning eyes are set with a determination you've seen in them yourself many times. 

Behind the very real Second Sister you see your mind's projection of her former self banging on the cell door, wasting effort and valuable energy. You don't blame her for trying. Not a bit. 

You can't see Cere but you feel her strapped in with you. The broken whisper of her voice is pleading. You press your lips together in a tight line to make sure you aren't saying the words yourself. 

“I'll tell you. I'll tell you where they are.”

You can't bring yourself to blame Cere either. 

The visions infuriate you, and as though the moments aligned like planets in an eclipse, you feel a burst of force energy as the power in the facility wavers in the storm. The room is plunged into darkness as the generators contend with the surrounding ocean's ruckus. The blackness blankets you with comfort but the peace is broken by the abhorrently bright and vacant eyes of the repurposed Pyke droid, shining out in two vile yellow circles. You have mere moments to act.

With a single murder committed and relished in anger you've only dipped your toes into the vast and sprawling waters of the dark side. The small well of hoarded Force energy within you is multiplied tenfold by the rage you allow to consume you as you take the plunge.Your restraints crumble away from you like repulsed magnets. 

The wise choice would be to attack the Second Sister while she has not fully acclimated to the dark. As you are now fueled solely by the instinctual forces of revenge and hate, you turn instead to the torture droid who squeals unsettlingly. 

It lifts into the air and folds in on itself in a shower of sparks and shrieking metal. While the revenge is sweet, Trilla's sharpened reflexes make her ready to strike within seconds.

“This is the end, padawan.”

Trilla sends you hurtling to the back wall hard as you fire the crushed droid's remains at her. The lights come on and power returns to the fortress as she's sent careening backward into the unlocked door that slides open at her approach. You hear her loud groan from the walkway beyond as she pushes the mass of scrap metal off herself.

A burst of hope flares inside you at the sight of an unobstructed exit. The rushing adrenaline of a prisoner on the precipice of freedom powers your movement as you throw yourself towards the open door. 

The Second Sister wobbles as she regains her feet. She shakes the fall from her head and prepares to take you head on. The dampeners are back online and all your strength comes from the fierce rush of adrenaline making your head float. Now or never. 

From the center of the open doorway Trilla reaches to unclip the double bladed lightsaber from her belt just as you lower your shoulders preparing for the impact of throwing yourself upon her. You're steps before the threshold when Trilla's entire body is thrown harshly from view. A hard thump follows when she hits a wall and then another and she slumps to the floor. 

You stop dead in your tracks, so close to freedom. You've never wanted anything more than to leave this room and each second you hesitate, that dream slips farther and farther as your mind fights to process. Had you imagined she was there at all? Are you still strapped into The Chair? Still in Cal's TIE fighter? On Kashyyyk? In the Jedi Temple? In your mother's arms? 

The spectres of Jedi prisoners all shout at once for you go. Run, jump, swim for your life. For some reason the empty doorway frightens you and your feet just won't move. 

You hear the soft patter of footfall as a figure emerges in the center of the doorway where Trilla had just been standing, ready to kill you. 

You don't recognize them at first. Your own mind is torturing you now too because it is conjuring impossibilities. Tears well in your eyes when they speak.

“It's alright, Y/N. I'm here to rescue you.” Cere Junda's warm and soothing eyes melt some of the ice inside you. She takes tentative steps toward you as though you're a wild animal, arm outstretched inoffensively.

You close the space between you and wrap your burned and blistered arms around her neck. This is not a gesture you've shared before but it's the only response that feels right to you.

“I didn't think anyone was coming.” You throat is tight as you fight the urge to break down and weep. The fight is not nearly done and you're far from escaped but the relief flooding you is overwhelming. 

“I wasn't going to let it happen again. Never again.” You were not after all, the first padawan Cere Junda lost to the Empire. 

The Second Sister sits up with a groan a short distance from you both. As she slowly takes in the sight before her, her old Master and new padawan reunited in an affectionate embrace, the rage builds visibly on her face. Dark Force energies spark to life around the three of you.

Cere pushes you behind her with one arm. An emerald green shaft of light extends from the lightsaber in her other hand, pointed at the Second Sister. The fortress rumbles and the lights skitter for just a second and return to full power as you to take your first look around the space beyond your cell.

The room is vast. Levels line the walls from floor to ceiling in neat rows of prison cell doors. Walkways cut across the expanse this way and that, all the way up. You can't imagine that every one of these cells is housing a prisoner. There are just too many. 

“Well, isn't this heartwarming. You'll pay dearly for that, Junda.” Trilla struggles onto her feet using the wall for support. The dark side coalesces around her as her hatred for both you and Cere fuel and compete against one another.

In a moment of clarity you tug Cere's arm in the other direction. Every nerve in your body is screaming for you to run. It's been your guiding force since Zeffo. 

“Let's get out of here.” You dare to picture the burnt orange upholstery on the seating in the Mantis' lounge. You can almost feel yourself sink into the cushion. Now that you've allowed yourself to miss it, nothing has ever been more important to you than getting to that ugly couch and sitting on it. 

Cere tears her eyes off of Trilla shifting her gaze toward you. Seeing what they've done to you fills her with sadness and she inches towards you but then throws her gaze back over at Trilla with the same emotion. 

“I have to do this.” 

The thought of spending a second longer in this place makes your skin crawl but you nod your assent. Cere's expressive brown eyes soften and you see her gratitude in them. The entire facility trembles and you feel in your gut that the storm is no where near its zenith. 

“Here.” She hands you a large green stim vial. “Start heading to the docking bay and get us a shuttle to the surface. Greez is waiting on the Mantis. If I'm not there in fifteen minutes leave withou-” 

Trilla's salvo returns Cere's earlier gesture by blasting her like a ragdoll off the side of the walk. Your wide eyes follow her through the air to a lower level where she lands, battered but whole. 

“Prisoner escape on Level C, cell block 4. Troopers, report.” Trilla's tone is assertive and businesslike though the expression that bores into you is seething venom. In an instant the room is flooded with flashing red lights and an ear piercing siren. The repetition of the blaring sound feels like a physical assault. 

Cere's green saber shines out from below, her expression is stony and smacks of a challenge. Trilla finally makes the difficult decision of who she despises more when she leaps down gracefully to confront Cere. You can't hear a single word between them but you see their mouths moving as they circle one another, weapons clashing now and again. The sabers bounce off each other in maneuvers that are more conversational than deadly.

The bright white flashes of their lightsabers colliding feel like glitches in your brain. For so long you've only had pure darkness and utter silence. It was a struggle to keep your senses alive and now your vision is going white from drowning in the searing over stimulation. 

The reverse image of your imagined night sky begins to creep in from the edges. An all white canvas speckled with black stars. You look for the red one and refuse to admit that your heart sinks when it's not there.

You sway on your feet and remember the stim in your hand. You brusquely stab it into your chest and in an instant your entire body becomes alight in a sensation that borders on minty. Your limbs are weak and heavy as lead, you're starving and delirious from lack of sleep. Your mind is at its absolute limit and your grasp on reality is tentative at best but you suddenly have the will and focus to continue. 

The door across the way, which happens to be the largest in the room and therefore the obvious way out, whooshes open to unveil the daunting sight of ten or more stormtroopers and at least four purge troopers. Your lungs feel wrung out as the soldiers pour into the massive circular room and you're as good as caught once more. 

The troopers flank each side of the doorway and make no attempt to decend the massive ramp towards Cere and Trilla's battle or you, the escaped prisoner. You want to wonder why but your instincts tell you to accept the gift the universe has given you in the form of more time to decide what to do. 

You're startled from your daze when you hear a hard pound behind you, even over the relentless siren. The heavy thuds grow louder and more frantic as your ears lead you to the small window into the cell beside yours. A twi'lek with wild eyes pleads with you through the transparisteel. He's missing a lekku and the wound looks old. How long has he been here? 

Without a second thought you look to the key panel beside the door and press madly on each button there. They all look various shades of red in the incessent flashing lights. The door slides open and in a heavy Rylothian accent the Twi'lek thanks you. Tears stripe downward over his cheeks and drip over his lips that cover a mouth full of sharp spiked teeth. 

He makes to run past you, in what direction you aren't sure as the exit is blocked by Imperial soldiers, but when you grab his sleeve he spares his liberator a single moment of courtesy. Your eyes scan up and around the facility as it trembles and shakes again, chaos is brewing and you intend to enlist as much of it to your cause as possible. Each cell door is one more grateful body released to your side.

You drag the twi'lek with you over to the next cell over and slam on the same button that had released him. He understands at once and starts off in the other direction, opening cell after cell. Prisoners pour out and begin to crowd. As your numbers grow the troopers begin to open fire while maintaining their positions. You wonder again what's keeping them there. What are they protecting...or waiting for? 

Mayhem spreads like a virus in every direction as the prisoners swarm the Imperials who barricade the only exit on both sides. The battlecries of the liberated are barely audible over the deafening siren and the flashing red lights cast a murderous glow over the scene. Trilla and Cere barely register the storm surrounding them twice over as they mire themselves in their deeply personal clash. A battle within a battle, a storm within a storm. The dynamic lighting and swirl of bodies make for a superb and grotesque masterpiece. In your mind the chaos stills and becomes frozen in paint. You could definitely use a second stim.

You believe your eyes deceive you again when you see Cere place a tentative hand on Trilla's cheek. Their weapons are lowered and amongst the chaos is a glowing ember of hope. 

When the massive doors slide open again all heads snap toward it and for a second the collective gasp is louder than the sirens. The fortress must be suffering storm damage in other areas because clouds of steam and smoke pour into the room around the single figure towering there like a phantom.

The image you had conjured of the man, if you can call him that, could not hold a candle to the figure before you. Every inch of him darker than the blackness of your prison cell and worse because it's only yourself reflected back from the buffed surfaces of his armor. 

Lord Vader ignites his crimson red lightsaber and strides forward with all the prestige and authority in the galaxy. You feel faint as all the blood in your body rushes to your head and your heartbeat pounds in your ears but you don't let it stop you from slamming your palm down over and over on the release of cell doors one after another. 

Cere steps back tentatively as the Second Sister appears frozen, back to the Emperor's attack dog. Her sharp and hauntingly beautiful features contort in fear and resignation as he draws closer. Above the din you hear her elegant voice ring out one final time. 

“Avenge us!” 

Cere's heart shatters as a beam of red light emerges from Trilla's chest and she falls lifeless to the ground. 

The room becomes a pit of dark Force energy. It rolls in waves off of Vader but you're struck like a hammer when it gathers closely around Cere, its epicenter. Danger abounds in every direction, you don't have a plan to get out of here and it seems less likely with every second that goes by but you can't deny the feeling of sameness that floods your chest at Cere's display. Now is not the time, you know, but it both pleases and disheartens you to see a good person, a former Jedi, battle the dark side and give in. 

A radial blast moves outward from her and levels troopers and prisoners alike. Vader stumbles back a few paces but remains otherwise unfazed. Until desperate prisoners, that now outnumber the troopers, throw themselves bodily upon the Sith Lord, resulting in their immediate demise. Cauterized pieces of inmates fly off in every direction. The strategy is ineffective but the distraction is welcome.

You spot Cere amongst the ocean of bodies, eyes blown wide, searching for you. You communicate wordlessly that it's time to go as she begins a mad dash, past Vader, towards the open exit. 

The Fortress Inquisitorius suffers its largest and longest shudder thus far and a leak springs in an upper corner of the room creating a cascading waterfall that pours over the crowd. It makes you want to laugh as the dire nature of the situation succeeds at one upping itself repeatedly. You hadn't even asked yourself ironically if things could possibly get any worse. 

Your hand hovers over the release of the final cell door. You slam your fist down on the button and make to follow Cere and wade through the madness to the hangar bay and then to freedom. You can almost taste it. 

The cell door whooshes open and you prepare yourself for a series of Force dashes to cross the expansive room until a hand clenches around your arm in a vice-like grip. The touch is electric and your head is awash in the familiarity of the gesture. You know it's him before you turn your head back over your shoulder. You can feel it in your bones. 

His intense two-tone stare bores into you rather than absorbing the chaotic scene beyond. One red, one yellow, like your lightsabers before he destroyed yours. The heavy weight of the Eleventh Brother's gaze has always unsettled you but this time there is something new and worse that chills your blood and freezes it in your veins. He's changed. 

“Leaving without me, Hot stuff?”


	8. Sheep in Wolf's Clothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Back to being their weapon. The Emperor's tool to be used and discarded. And you were just starting to get interesting.” You sound like him, it's what he likes. 
> 
> He proves it when he chuckles. He's breathing hard already and his good eye is even more bloodshot than usual. It's glassed over with unshed tears, from the pain or something else, you're not sure. You wonder what color they were before all this.
> 
> “Ah, Y/N. I wish it didn't have to end this way. I'm going to miss you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! I'm so touched by the kind words and support from readers! I'm so blown away! Thank you so much for enjoying reading this as much as I love writing it! 
> 
> I don't want to constrict myself with a chapter count, as I've learned that backfires, but we are winding down to a close. I'm sure you've noticed. So I want to offer an even more concentrated THANK YOU for sticking with it and seeing Always Red through as we enter the home stretch! 
> 
> You're all the best! 
> 
> Enjoy!

He's changed. Not just how he looks at you but also how he looks. A wide swath of his glorious red hair has been closely shorn revealing a neatly stitched scar. It stretches from the hairline on his forehead to the spot behind his ear. The skin has barely had the time to fuse and the edges are swollen and red. When you look at it for too long it makes your own wounds ache. 

“Looks like you didn't need my help after all. I should have known.” He looks over your shoulder at the miasma of bodies, erupting sirens, and cascading seawater, now ankle deep on the lowest level. 

His chuckle is frivolous and genuine. “Whoa, is that Vader? There's no way you planned for that.” 

You don't manage a response, you can only stare at him as he surveys the room. The pupil of his good eye is blown as wide as a dinner plate as he absorbs the mayhem gleefully.

The chaos erupting all around you feels slowed as you measure this new player. Each time you reunite with Cal it's with a new version of himself and there's no way to tell if this one is friend or foe. You can't help but ask yourself in a berating inner voice which, if any, have been friendly. 

You confront the possibility that you've been had, manipulated by the Eleventh Brother into developing a softness for him over the shared trauma you've endured. It's a vulnerability more for the person he used to be. The one you never met and is gone now. 

You're both prisoners, even when he roamed the galaxy hunting Jedi at the Empire's behest he carried his prison cell with him. As fooled by his captors into seeing an illusion of freedom as you've been by his ...attentions. 

“Cal...what have they done to you?” Somehow he hears you above the din of battle and he's thrown by the question. Each time you've reluctantly shown him a kindness, however small, he doesn't know what to do with it. He struggles to process the concern in your voice as his eyes dart between you and the pandemonium. 

“That almost sounds genuine. You worried about me, gorgeous? Is it my new haircut?” He jokes as his gaze scans the chamber and then freezes over the thing he'd been searching for. The needle in the haystack. 

“They helped me understand you, this thing between me and you. I misunderstood at first why the Force brought us together.” His grip on your arm hasn't loosened. “I was right that you're not like other Jedi I've hunted but I was wrong to try and turn you. This can only go one way. It's me or you.” 

Cal's head twitches violently and he presses the heel of his hand between his eyes to allay the sharp sting there. You've held a full conversation with the Eleventh Brother while a sharpened mineral jut from his eye so the discomfort he's feeling now must be distinct. You can't deny that at the time it pleased you that you had inflicted the damage yourself, he deserved it. It's difficult to imagine that the pain he's feeling now is just when he's emerged from a cell just like your own. That it has everything to do with the fresh scar spanning his skull is an astute assumption. 

“Look at what they've done to you! What they're still doing to you. Cal, you told me that we make each other better. That's what you said.” You hope that hearing his own words will stop him from going down whatever road they've set him on in reconditioning.

You don't believe knowing Cal has enhanced you in any way, but for better or worse you are your truest self now. If you survive this you will also be the strongest version of yourself to exist, and the most damaged. All thanks to Inquisitor Kestis. His hand on your arm is clenched like a vice as the pain spikes through him.

“We do. You do- will- did. I'm going to become the best I've ever been, will ever be, because of you.” Cal speaks haltingly through clenched teeth until the moment passes. His breathing is ragged and he looks tired when he releases your arm and puts it on the wall to steady himself. When he raises his eyes to yours they're soft and heavy. He is a different Cal from second to second. 

His free hand comes up to the side of your face and for the first time you don't flinch. When it extends over your shoulder, fingers outstretched in a waiting grasp, you keenly feel the absence of touch you had prepared for. 

You're alive because of the stim Cere gave you but your senses are dull and you feel steps behind reality with moments of clarity that rush you all at once. Flushes of force power flood you with each surge of the Storm beyond the fortress, seeping its way in and making itself known. Its sustenance is keeping you on your feet. 

The lag in space and time starts up again all in a single moment. Something lands in Cal's waiting grasp beside your ear. In a flash his face is awash in the chillingly familiar red light of an Inquisitor's Imperial issued lightsaber. Trilla's. You've seen him in this light hundreds of times. In battle, before, after, in your nightmares, in your dreams. Never once did you see him look the way he looks right now. As gaunt and fatigued as you imagine yourself, a quarter of his hair shaved, angry scars new and old going white as the rest of his pale skin becomes flushed in anger.

“Before you I had no weaknesses. Now though- after I put you down nothing will ever be able to stop me, there won't be any questions left to ask, there will only be the dark. This is its will.”

Even in your stupor you know this is grade-A nonsense. Imperial rhetoric at its finest. He glitches again and it frightens you when he pounds the side of his head until it passes. You stop yourself from reaching out, compassion will only make him pull back, you try something he's familiar with. 

“Back to being their weapon. The Emperor's tool to be used and discarded. And you were just starting to get interesting.” You sound like him, it's what he likes. 

He proves it when he chuckles. He's breathing hard already and his good eye is even more bloodshot than usual. It's glassed over with unshed tears, from the pain or something else, you're not sure. You wonder what color they were before all this.

“Ah, Y/N. I wish it didn't have to end this way. I'm going to miss you.” 

Again, you can only catch up to the current events after they've begun. You puzzle together what's happened and what's happening piece by piece. You know you're in the air, pulled by the Force, just from how it feels. You know it wasn't Cal. The look of shock on his face is a treasure. You hear Cere, whose been watching you and weaving her way through the throng toward the exit, yell your name. She sounds afraid. 

Over your shoulder you see the massive gloved hand of Darth Vader waiting to collect you. He came here for you after all and Vader is rarely denied. Everything up until now has been a distraction and an inconvenience. In the stilled moment you notice the corpses piled around the Sith Lord as you are reminded of his presence. How did you dare to forget it? The weight of his anger hits your chest like a hammer. 

Miliseconds are passing like years as instincts overcome everyones senses. Cal and Cere both reach out to you in the Force. You're being pulled in three different directions and the sensation is excruciating. Vader pulls the hardest, Cal the most desperate. Cere lowers her hand when she sees what it's doing to you. Bless that woman. 

You only have seconds before everyone gets a piece of what they want. The intensity of the pain focuses your scattered mind in a way you hope to experience only this one time.

Deep in the underwater facility you can't hear the thunder crack but you feel it when the fortress trembles. You reach out to the storm and call it towards you. The crack in the ceiling and wall that has steadily poured seawater into the room is building with pressure. You feel for its edges and pull on them with all your strength and the steady waterfall becomes a violent gushing and then the room is half full, or is it half empty?

The force of it knocks the room's inhabitants off their feet and you plop unceremoniously into the surmounting water. 

The world beneath the surface is muffled and peaceful. It reminds you of the enveloping blackness of your cell. Part of you wants to stay. You see the bottom halves of prison mates and storm troopers treading water and flopping around on the surface. Not down here. Here, your clothes float gracefully around your limbs, your hair cascades around your face in ribbons and the water passes through your fingers like a strong wind. It's a comforting dreamscape that quickly becomes fleeting as you begin to run out of breath. 

When you break the surface it's chaos. The symphony of cries and frantic splashing is deafening. Swimmers crowd the exit as water spills out of the room. Breech procedures should kick in soon and if you don't get out you'll be sealed in. The battle is forgotten as all combatants become swimmers and hopefully survivors. 

As you near the edge a frenzied swimmer pushes you beneath the water. The only way back up is to leverage yourself using the nearest body. Every person submerging the next and no one getting out. This is what you ponder beneath the surface of the water, pummeled on all sides with knees and elbows.

Darkness collects around you and tightens in the form of frantic bodies fighting for their lives. The absence of light is familiar but you struggle to let go of the small strand of hope you clenched in your fist when remembering the Mantis, when you saw Cere's warm brown eyes, as comforting and calm as these waters are tumultuous. 

The lack of oxygen, and a myriad of coalesced ailments, are affecting your brain when you're blinded by a bright light penetrating the darkness above you. Five fingers of pure white light reach out to you, just you. You reach up and just as your fingertips connect and meld with the warmth you're playing catch up again as you're transported to another time and place in reality. 

Cere's arm is around you as you hack up water all over her feet. She's saved you again, plucked you out of the black like an apple from a tree branch. With one hand she's patting your back as you cough up a lung and with the other shes pulling folks up over the lip of the top level. Some stay and help get as many people out as possible, others make a run for it. 

Because there is no peace in the Fortress Inquisitorius, a louder, higher pitched siren begins to sound as the massive flood doors begin to shut. The strain on Cere's face is palpable as she lifts you to your feet by the shoulders and urges you forward through the exit. Pleading cries bounce off your backs as you abandon the room and everyone in it. 

No sign of the Eleventh Brother or Vader. It's possible they streamed past you with other escapees and also that they've sunk to the very bottom of the chamber. Vader doesn't look like he floats. 

The pounding of wet boots squelch through the vast hallway as you lean up against the nearest wall. You left your head in the water. Cere's troubled face floats in front of you and her measured voice urges you to stay with her, all three of them, five of them, ten of them. The chorus of her worried tones seem to drift further and further away even with her standing in front of you. Her skin starts to glow as bright as the hand that pulled you from the water.

Theres a sharp pinch in your shoulder as a soothing freshness floods your chest and limbs, fastening you to your current plain. A small empty stim vial clinks on the durasteel floor between your feet and your eyelids flutter back to life. Cere has saved your life at least three times in the last hour. How is it possible that this woman ever doubted she was anything but good through and through? If you get out of here you'll never let her forget it. 

“Y/N?” her tone is dire when she snaps her fingers in front of your face. It's the loudest sound you've ever heard. “We're getting out of here. Let's go, the elevator is this way.” 

You follow her at a brisk pace down the corridor. Escaped prisoners meander in every direction. The smartest ones stick close to you and Cere. After all, she snuck into this fortress undetected without the cover of one disastrous distraction after another to occupy the Imperials. This should be a piece of cake. 

As you near the first bend in the massive corridor leading away from the dreaded chamber and towards the surface elevator, you hazard a backward glance. A radial heat emanates from a spot on the sealed watertight doors glowing brighter and brighter until a shaft of crimson light pokes through. Steam hisses as the line of molten durasteel comes in contact with the icy seawater. Cere tugs you by the arm out of view. 

Your heart is pounding in your chest and your skin is crawling with anxiety. The healing energy of the stim has its limits and ultimately it halts the symptoms while doing nothing to aid in a cure. In the same way, caff does keep you awake but too much will make you jittery and irritable and eventually the body must sleep. So too of health stims. For now the uncomfortable feeling of minty insects under your skin is what's keeping you conscious so you're oddly thankful for it. 

You follow Cere unquestioningly down a myriad of corridors. You link hands with her and a line of escaped prisoners that have latched on, the Twi'lek you had first released among them. 

For a moment Cere pulls over to an alcove, waiting for a rushing patrol to pass, heading down the direction you've just come from. You doubt that any troopers from the flooded chamber survived, even before the doors had closed. Hidden from sight you hear a pause in the passing troopers' rhythmic footfall.

“Sir, Level C responders' comms are down.” One out of breath trooper calls out. 

“They reported that a prisoner had escaped but I'm seeing red on a number of cell units.” The one behind chimes. 

“And a … possible, well, definite hull breach in that sector.” another adds. 

“Of all the days, it had to be when Lord Vader is scheduled to arrive.” Presumably the commander, who is terribly uninformed, sighs in exasperation.

“He uh...already has, Sir. Last seen headed toward ...Cell block 4 on Level C.” 

“Stars above! Comm the Second Sister right away. This is her responsibility not mine!” 

“No response, Commander.” 

“Get down there and find out what the hell is going on!” 

You look over your shoulder and try to offer the Twi'lek a meager smile. You're genuinely happy to see him again and pleased that you can spare yourself from later imagining him suspended in seawater surrounded by the floating limbs of Vader's victims. Without control, you picture Cal this way and a flash of complicated feelings flood through you. 

The pink Twi'lek can't seem to return the favor of a small smile as he is more frightened now than he's been in his entire life. You don't relate but sympathize with the poor man. There was a time when you might have been frightened by a patrol of stormtroopers but you've looked too many Sith in the eye to be afraid of idiot soldiers that can't aim for shit. Even wildly outnumbered.

After a few moments the footfall fades and the coast is clear. Cere leads the group through a few more uneventful twisting and turning hallways before you reach the large elevator shaft up to the planet's surface. Against your better judgement you allow yourself to dream once more of the Mantis. You wonder how tall the seeds in Greez's terrarium have grown and once more you dare to picture the ugly orange couches. You can almost taste Cere's burnt caff and the thought makes you giddy. This nightmare is almost over.

You slam our fist down on the elevator call button and for one measly moment things seem to be going right, until you hear it.

The cacophony of the flooded cell block had spared you the auditory accompaniment that is an essential element of Darth Vader's presence. Now, you hear the mechanized breathing so loudly that it's almost as though you are producing the sound yourself. 

The Sith Lord's emotionless mask betrays nothing of his feeling though you can taste a placid fury in the air surrounding him. A puddle of ocean water collects at his feet, dripping from his heavy cape. The prisoners release a collective gasp as Cere, blessed Cere, pushes through them to stand with her lightsaber raised. 

You hate yourself for wanting to laugh.

“I will have the Jedi holocron. You will give me it's location.”

His first step forward cracks like thunders in your ears. Even when the elevator arrives and the doors chime open he comes closer in measured steps as he ignites his sinister red lightsaber. 

You pile the prisoners in and as Cere prepares for the impact of her life you raise your hand behind her and with it a shield forms in the air between her and the Sith Lord. It's a Jedi trick, you weren't sure you could still do it but you had to try, for Cere.

Vader's blade rains down and in a single quaking blow the barrier is shattered. The momentum of the impact forces you and Cere back, off your feet, directly into the waiting elevator doors. 

The trembling Twi'Lek almost busts the launch button with how hard he throws himself upon it. The timing, in an infinite show of mercy, allows Vader to stride up to the doors in time for them to close in his face. As the elevator begins its upward climb a warm orange streak forms on the door. It grows hot and then cools as the car moves up and away from Vader and his lightsaber. 

You sink to the floor as the weight of the last five minutes piles onto you all at once. Cere is clutching her sword arm, apparently your barrier absorbed the brunt of Vader's attack but not all of it. She's alive though, that's the most of what you had dared to hope for.

No one says a word as you speed to the planet's surface and the flashing light of each passing level flashes over your small petrified group. The air is heavy but you're not sure why. The worst is over isn't it? You're as good as free.

You're seconds away from the final landing when the floor beneath you starts to grow warm. The spot between your feet starts to glow in that telltale orange light that grows brighter and hotter the longer you stare at it. 

Shrieks tear through the compartment as a scarlet shaft of light erupts through the floor. 

The elevator dings, sounding the arrival to the planet's surface. The bright red light traces a concise circle on the floor as the passengers spill out onto the Fortress's landing platform. 

It's the first time you've laid eyes on the outside in a lifetime and it is awash in a violent display of Nature's wrath. You were another person when you went below Nur's surface and someone else has emerged from its depths.

The storm winds thrash against the Stinger Mantis that sits stalwart and patient at the end of the furthest runway, behind several neat rows of TIE fighters fastened to the ground. 

Behind you, waves crash up againt the sides of the tall imposing triangle of a fortress that juts from the sea, the only indication of a sprawling facility beneath its surface. Foam sprays your face and you taste salt, real salt on your lips. 

The most eager members of the group sprint out onto the runway and one unfortunate soul is caught up in the gale force winds and is whipped into the ocean, like an insect flicked off your knee. More cautious survivors learn to hide in the shadows of locked down ships, to make their way gradually to the Mantis. 

You forget where you are. All you can think about is the fresh salty air in your lungs and the rain on your skin. Lightning streaks across the sky and seconds later thunder quakes from your center outward. It makes you laugh. A laugh so full and hearty that you throw your head back and grab your sides. 

Halfway down the runway Cere cries out to you, you can't hear her but her expression is urgent. The pink Twi'lek is beside her waving frantically for you to move. You're swaying on your feet and you know it's time to go but you can't help but cast a final glance on the Fortress Inquisitorius. 

You're immediately full of regret when you see a figure standing in the open elevator door. You shut your eyes tight but when they open again he's still there. Steam rises from the molten edges of the hole he came up through in the elevator floor. Red light shines from the weapon in his hand and spreads across his face. Always red. 

“You never stop running do you?” Cal flourishes his lightsaber, leveling you with his gaze. His simple black shirt and pants are already sopping wet when he steps out into the downpour. His feet are bare. 

Running would be sensible. You're closer to freedom than you've ever been. If the Mantis doors were open you might be able to see the orange couch from where you're standing. But it wouldn't be over. It will never be over with Cal hunting you. 

You look back at Cere and she recognizes the look on your face. It's one she gave you a short while ago. You have to do this. Your Master gives you a curt nod and lobs her lightsaber towards you. You reach into the wind and guide it to your hand using the Force. 

When you turn to face Cal again your stone faced and fearless, bathed in green light. 

“Who's running?” 

His eyes bore into you and his gaze makes you feel like he's asking you something. Something a predator asks its prey before consummation of the hunt. It's a call to arms, to enter an age old dance that can only end one way. It's the question that hangs between the hunter and the hunted and the difference from slaughtering cattle. Your heart breaks a little. Is this how it ends, exactly the way it started? 

A smile, that smile, spreads wide across Cal's face. You hate to admit it but your heart sings when your lightsabers clash. 

You start off flashy with a wide spinning arc through the air because you're excited. It fades quickly as your body surpasses its limitations. You're nearly out of breath already and the fight's only just begun.

The bright flashes from the sabers bouncing off one another sting your eyes. Cal's face is tired his eyes are framed by deep dark circles that betray his fatigue. Neither of you are quite as fast or as agile as that first battle in the cave on Zeffo or any thereafter.

This was a bad idea. Time to change tactics. Your sabers are locked, faces close. Falling rain sends sparks flying across your cheeks. 

“Cal, it doesn't have to be this way. You don't have to listen to them!” The look he gives you, it's more telling than any grain of hope he's dropped in your hands before. He wants to believe you. Thunder crashes and his head throws backward. His eyes pinch shut and you can almost hear a high pitched ting as the wave of searing pain passes through his head. 

“Stop talking! Of course I do!” 

With an anguished roar he lashes out, one strike after another that glance off your blade and sends you backward as he eats up the ground you've given.

“I saw something, you know, while I was...y'know.” Cal gestures with his lightsaber as though you already know the words. “It wasn't something they showed me either. It was a vision from the Force.” His breath is ragged but he won't stop coming towards you. He has to shout over the rain.

“I saw a stone, tall and flat, covered all over in moving gold paint. It was alive, like it knew I was looking into it. I could see my reflection in it but when I raised my hand...it wasn't me. He looked like me but different, more whole. He wasn't happy to see me either, I can tell you that much. He made the face you make when you see me.” His jaw works back and forth as raindrops collect and hang off his chin, some swivel down his neck. The fight is paused.

“I'm never gonna be him.” 

Normally you have a play for a moment like this. An angle to work at, some opening to capitalize on but all you can do it stare at him, drenched. 

“Cal-” You don't know what it is you're planning to say. 

“I'll always be what they've made me. I'm a weapon. They point me at something and I turn it red, and baby, they're pointing at you.” He looks devastated when a new spasm of agony overtakes him. Cal winces and shrinks from a sound only he can hear. It makes him angry and so he lunges at you. It's the only thing he can think of to make it stop. His movements are sloppy and easily evaded. 

The storm is raging around you. Your hair whips wildly back and forth and it stings when it slaps your neck and face. Cal is lacking in many ways, nearly all the ways that count in a human being but one thing that rings true is his prowess as a warrior. He is the most formidable opponent you have ever faced and to see him robbed of even this truth boils your blood. 

You sidestep his swordplay and place your hand on the side of his face. A wave of force energy pulses down your arm from your core and rocks Cal backward, rattling his tender mind. 

He's doubled over and it makes you so fucking sad and angrier than you've ever felt. How dare they? How dare Vader? How dare the Emperor! How dare every trooper following orders! How dare every Imperial bastard from the bottom to the top! HOW DARE THE EMPIRE!

You think of every prisoner's stolen future. The good that was robbed from the galaxy. You imagine the Cal in the gold mirror and the fury over his loss is overwhelming. 

You're filled with the rage of every Jedi that came to this cursed place. Fathomless rage that they had been taught from childhood to deny. You give yourself to it wholly and when you look at the looming angular form of the fortress over Cal's shoulder the planet trembles as thunder sounds overhead.

You draw strength from the natural power of the storm. It's pure Force energy courses through you and lights up every inch of your being. Lightning streaks across the sky and unlimited power flows from your finger tips and strikes the building setting it ablaze. Explosions that rival the thunder sound off as the chain reaction takes off under water. 

Cal is dazed, blood is gushing from his nose, like in the cave on Zeffo. When he looks up at you standing over him you're writhed in the flames of the burning Fortress Inquisitorius, like a prophecy come true before his eyes. 

“Now you'll be what I make you.” 

Tears mix with the rain on his face. His consciousness is fading but before the lights go out you see that same old drunken dumbstruck look on his face. He looks like he wants to laugh, to relish his vision but it's impossible to stave off the encroaching darkness. 

You hadn't realized that your fight had brought you closer to the Mantis than you knew. When you look at the lowered ramp Cere, Greez, and the handful of survivors are standing with their jaws on the floor. 

When the wind whistles through your bones and you realize what you've done your strength finally gives out. The last drop from an empty pitcher. 

You fall to your knees beside Cal. Your eyelids are already fluttering closed as you pitch forward over him. You can barely hear yourself whisper though it seems somehow that they've heard you because the last thing you remember seeing is the Mantis crew running towards you. Worry and strain plastered on their faces. 

“Please, help me get him on the ship.”


	9. There's Not Going to be a Back to Normal!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You've seen good in him. It's hard to believe that any kind of training can make a Jedi forget themselves completely. Something always survives.” Cere nods knowingly, but you have to stop her.
> 
> “No, not exactly.” You wag your head back and forth while you sort through the riot of thoughts and emotions.
> 
> In his own words he described himself as a weapon. To you he's more and he's less. Is a knife good or evil depending on the hand it's in? Why not yours rather than the Emperor's?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! I was going to make one huge massive chapter for the end, which is why it's taken a bit longer than usual, and then I realized it was too big and fat. So I'm chopping it up! Which means there is just a bit more story to tell and also that the next update is nearly half finished already!
> 
> Please consider this Part 1 of the finale and there will be an epilogue to follow. :) 
> 
> As always, thank you so much for continuing to read and enjoy this story. I can't tell you how shocked and dazzled I am by the positive responses. Your feedback means everything!
> 
> Enjoy!

It's a strange place between sleep and wakefulness. Where your senses are both sharp enough to hear spirits and taste the air in a dream but not enough to see who else is in the room with you. One body and one mind spread through two vastly different realms of being and the veil between them is thin, sheer, glittering but strong like a wyyschokk 's webbing.

As you near closer to one and begin to leave the other behind, you scratch and wipe the silky webs from your eyes and cross over. You expect your eyes to open on a bright new world. One after your daring escape from the Inquisitor's fortress. Full of vitality, of hope for the future that you fought to keep. The one you kept locked in your jaws and refused to release. It's yours, to make what you will of it.

That's what you expect but when you lift the final strings of webbing from your face to gaze upon your new hope, you see instead only red.

Your split consciousness drops like a stone into your body; two feet soundly placed in one reality. When your eyelids unstick they're blinded by an intense and direct light.

It comes away when the examiner lets his hand drift sideways.

Floating above you is the studious face of the pink Twi'lek prisoner from the fortress. He's staring into your eyes but not at you, inspecting your dilating pupils. Do your eyes deceive you or is that your bedroom ceiling on the Mantis over his shoulder? It's almost too much to hope.

The events of the past 24 hours strike like a hammer on the anvil of your mind. You choke and struggle to sit up. The both of you see stars when you duly crack your forehead into his. Luckily, you learn in an instant that Twi'lek foreheads have a fleshy padding. Still, you rub the spot of impact on your head.

“It's alright. You're alright, Y/N.” The Twi'lek speaks in a soothing tone that makes you feel like a farm animal, even though it's nice.

“What's going on?” You sputter the perfunctory question.

“We're on your ship, the Stinger Mantis. It has been 4 days since we all escaped from Nur.” His words take longer to digest because of his heavy Rylothian accent but it allows their meaning to sink in deeper. “You have been taking a well deserved nap. Cere and I have been watching over you.”

You look down at yourself. Your arms are wrapped in gauze coated heavily in bacta gel that's gotten everywhere since you started moving. You're also wearing gloves that feel slimy in each finger, but soothing on your raw and exposed fingertips. You hold your hand up in front of your face and flex the digits in and out of a claw.

“Will they grow back?” You mean your fingernails.

“Yes, I believe they will. Or should at least.”

Your nods double as you cast your gaze around the room, looking to grab onto any one of the thousand questions floating through your mind. You settle on an obvious and unimportant one.

“You're a medic then.” It's not even really a question but he still confirms patiently.

“Yes. I have been out of practice but these things are not easily forgotten.”

“Well thank you, uh-” you should have asked his name first. Stupid.

“Byt. Ilan. And it is I that must thank you. I would still be in a cell withering away if you hadn't released me.”

When you nod your understanding he smiles. It's a little lopsided but but it compliments his uneven lekku while also assuaging a deep worry inside you that hasn't stopped panicking since you woke up in the back of Cal's TIE fighter.

Oh.

A second wave of detailed memories crashes your brain and you remember your cheek pressing onto Cal's side when you collapsed over him in the downpour on Nur. The rain is freezing in your memory but you recall one side of your face was warm on him and the other was warmed by the towering flames of the blazing fortress Inquisitorius, a stone's throw away.

“Where's Cal?” You ask a little too loudly.

“The Inquisitor.” Byt's smile fades quickly. “He's in the cargo hold. He has not woken since arriving. I've done what I can to make him comfortable, though I'm not sure why.”

“Thank you.” You don't know why you said that. Byt's eyebrow twitches and you see it's difficult for him to keep the judgment from his voice.

“It is my duty to provide care to those who need it.” His face hardens and some of his warmth recedes. You can't blame him. Even if it wasn't the Eleventh Brother himself that had imprisoned Byt, it easily could have been.

“Ha. You sound like a Jedi.” The comment is more for your benefit than his. You already know that even if you could organize the jumbled mass of your thoughts and feelings concerning the Inquisitor, you'd never be able to express them in a way that could make Byt see that you feel the same way. In every way, Cal is in need of care. That's why you brought him here, that's what you're telling yourself.

Either way Byt can mind his own business about it. You toss the covers aside and make to throw yourself onto your feet.

“You really shouldn't!” Like a helicoptering mother hen, Byt poses his arms in a wide semi circle around you without touching, but ready to catch you.

You wobble but keep your feet with one hand on Byt's arm.

The doors to your quarters whoosh open and suddenly Cere Junda is smiling at you. It's the first time, you think, that you've really seen her smile. It's lovely.

“Cere!” It's good to see her and the best part is that she's not in immediate danger and neither are you. It's refreshing. Her weapon forward arm is in a sling, but she seems no worse for wear.

“I came when I heard voices.” She immediately takes your arm as you transfer from one caretaker to the other.

“I will excuse myself.” Byt bows cordially and leaves the room.

“He is so polite.” You remark to Cere when Byt is out of earshot.

“He is. Out of all the new passengers, Byt certainly has the most manners. It's gotten crowded out there. Greez is...” she pauses to find the right words and settles on something simple,“not happy.”

“When is he ever?” You joke. Cere huffs a small laugh. The levity is comforting because it's been so long but also unsettling as a larger more serious conversation looms above you. Inevitable.

“That's true.” Cere fills the void, waiting to see if you'll bring him up or if she should. Before you get down to that business there's one important point you have to establish.

“Cere, I want to thank you, for coming for me. You saved my life.” With that, some of the awkwardness is swept out of the room.

“I never thought I'd go back there.” Her gaze moves far away. You can't see what she's seeing but you know the look. When you take her hand in your own she snaps to attention and looks you deep in the eyes without meaning to. “I couldn't leave you there.”

She knows exactly what she saved you from and that there is no way you could repay her. She wouldn't want you to.

“Thank you.” You say the words with as much gravity as you can muster. You give her hand a final affectionate squeeze before letting go to place your hand on the wall for balance as you guide yourself towards the door.

“And where exactly are you going?” She asks teasingly.

“The cargo hold.” You make it sound like a common occurrence.

Your answer sucks all the tranquility from the room and Cere's eyebrows pinch together slightly. You hear a heavy sigh eke out of her and her shoulders sag.

“We need to talk about him.”

It's dark in the cargo hold. Dark and cold. Immediately your skin starts to crawl but the sensation is so complete, over every inch of you, that it almost feels like a blanket. Your resolve hardens as you step into the shadow of an old friend, a cherished enemy.

The glow from a shaft of light coming down from the upstairs hatch allows you to find your way to Cal's cot when Cere turns on the overhead light. With a loud hum and then a crack the shadows are chased from every corner of the room. All light or all dark, it seems.

In the severe light Cal's eyelids flutter but remain closed. His brow creases then smooths out.

You place your hand on the metal side rail of the gurney to study him. It's less frightening than the Chair, certainly, but there's an echo of the device that unsettles you. He's restrained, one wrist fastened to each side. You understand why, absolutely you do. But it's hard to ignore the idea of how unhappy you would be to find yourself this way, waking from a nightmare.

You get a good look at the newest and arguably his nastiest scar. It's moist with bacta but uncovered, to avoid infection you suppose.

Cal's hair is ridiculous. A small cropping of neon orange fuzz has begun to sprout across the shaved expanse, contrasting with the rest of his head that's grown wild and awkwardly long all over. You think at first that he looks peaceful but take it back when you notice the pallor of his skin. He's sweating even though the hold is in fact quite chilly.

A strip of bright red hair sticks to his wet forehead and before you know what you're doing you brush it back into his hairline without thinking.

Cere clears her throat and when you look at her you already feel like you're on trial. She looks bewildered and confused as she awaits your explanation. No one understands what he's doing here but everyone is dying to know, you among them.

You press on your eyes with the heel of your hand and lightly rake your fingers down over your face with a groan before you attempt the daunting task of putting you and Cal into words. The explanation you had begun to piece together flies like a stack of loose papers out a window when your gloved fingertip, wet with Cal's sweat, passes over your lip and you taste the salt there. Your brain stalls.

When you say nothing, Cere has no choice but to hammer this nail right on the head. “Y/N, what is this Inquisitor to you?”

You squint up into the white hot lights. Do they have to be so bright? Who can think like this?

You should be resting. The growing discomfort is making your irritable.

“This is the one from Zeffo, isn't he? I don't understand, you were trying to kill each other even on Nur.”

The questions pummel you one after another and suddenly 4 days of sleep wasn't nearly enough. You shield your eyes from the intense fluorescent lighting while thinking of anything you can say to make her stop looking at you like that.

“The short answer is … I don't know. Can we talk about this somewhere else?” You're dizzy and swaying a little.

“You look pale, let's get you back to bed.” You follow Cere to the ladder and shoot one last glance over your shoulder as she turns out the light.

You sit back across your bed and release a relaxed sigh in the dim light of your personal quarters. Cere reenters the room with a small plate of ration bread and a glass of Muja fruit juice.

“Here. You need something real in your stomach.”

You thank her and chew more slowly than any human ever has, while you think of how to explain Cal. Cere settles in obstinately, for the long wait, until she can't take it anymore.

“I don't want to press you to share anything you don't feel ready to. But you have to give me something, enough to make me feel like I'm not putting everyone on this ship in danger by keeping him here. I want to trust you. Please, help me trust you. Is he dangerous?”

“I mean, yes, but he's confused. He needs help, Cere.” That's something she understands. If not for Vader's meddling there could be two inquisitors in the cargo hold. Cere was never ready to give up on Trilla.

“You've seen good in him. It's hard to believe that any kind of training can make a Jedi forget themselves completely. Something always survives.” She nods knowingly, but you have to stop her.

“No, not exactly.” You wag your head back and forth while you sort through the riot of thoughts and emotions.

In his own words he described himself as a weapon. To you he's more and he's less. Is a knife good or evil depending on the hand it's in? Why not yours rather than the Emperor's?

“He...he's been through a lot.”

Her shoulders sag. “You and I know better than most what it's like to come back from the things they put you through in there. I don't want to admit it but there's such a place that's too far to return from.”

“I have to try. He deserves the chance to try. Cere, if I fail him then part of me will always be trapped in the fortress. Does that sound foolish?” The thought only occurs to you as your hear it expressed in your own voice. The words are bittersweet. They're a sturdy knot that fastens you to him with the long cord of misfortune.

“No. No, it doesn't. But things might not go the way you hope.”

“They rarely do.” It's funny because it's true. “I know I can't make him good but maybe it's enough to just … not be bad.”

Eloquent, you are not, but Cere still nods in some kind of understanding. It seems like enough for now.

“I won't let him hurt anyone. And if things go badly I won't hesitate to do what's necessary.” You mean the words when you say them but when a scream suddenly tears through the floor under your feet, you already feel like a liar.

You throw yourself down the ladder to the cargo hold and freeze instantly when you take in the scene before you. Cere's feet slam on the metal grating behind you.

On one side of the room you see Cal standing with one arm raised in the air before him. His hand is trembling and you notice that his thumb is bent and crooked. Broken to slip his restraints. His other arm is still fastened to the overturned gurney behind him. It's twisted at an odd angle that is uncomfortable to see.

On the other side of the room, Byt is pressed up against the wall, several feet off the ground. He's grasping at his throat. It's the last and most telling piece of this very simple puzzle.

“Cal, no!”

You dart out into the space between them, arms extended.

“Cal, stop right now!”

He's not seeing you. He's transfixed on Byt's collapsing trachea. Cal's eye is bloodshot and a very prominent vein pulses on his forehead. His lip is twisted into a wicked sneer and his foolish hair is slick with sweat.

With an echoing crack you slap him hard across the face. A loud red handprint blossoms in its wake. Cal's eyelids blink out of sync and he finally registers you standing in front of him.

“Y/N...” His voice is small. He looks skeptical, like he doesn't believe you're really there.

By the time you see Cere, snuck up behind the Eleventh Brother like a wraith from the shadows, her work is already done. You hear Byt behind you, dropping to the ground in a loose limbed pile with a clamor.

A plunged syringe protrudes from the side of Cal's neck. You're eyes are wide because you think he's dead on his feet. When his hand floats up to his neck and swats lamely at the apparatus you know he's only been sedated and you start breathing again.

Before he pitches forward, Cal grabs at the empty air in front of you, just out of reach. The very tip of his longest finger leaves a hot streak down your front as he goes down. Unconscious, he's strung up by his arm still fastened to the skewed gurney. His shoulder is most certainly dislocated. Without thinking you undo the restraint and he slumps over, cheek pressed into the floor.

When you turn around every eye on the Mantis is trained on you. Cere is helping Byt to his feet as the air fills with his hacking and coughing. Four other strangers appear to be in various stages of shock and horror. Greez is off to the side, he's doing nothing to disguise his bewilderment. His wide lips flatten into a thin line as he nods to you. It's the first time you've seen him since he dropped you on Kashyyyk. The moment isn't right for a reunion.

No one understands why there's an Inquisitor on the ship and you don't know how to explain it to them. You're not sure yourself. They're frightened and they should be. What were you thinking? How were you expecting this to go?

It takes a lot of convincing but eventually Byt sets Cal's shoulder and wraps his hand. He's a good man. It takes even more persuading for Cere to allow Cal's injured hand to remain unbound. You tell them you'll take it from here. He won't be a problem, you'll make sure of it, but as the words leave your mouth you can only pray that they're true.

Uneasiness spreads like an infection throughout the ship as everyone retreats to sleep. The precious sanctity of your own bed calls out to you as you watch the grateful prisoners lay out in the lounge. A timid Rodian lays her head on the orange couch cushion and your heart goes out to her as she experiences what you dreamt of in captivity. To escape the terror of life as a prisoner to begin your new life in the shadow of fear cast by one of your captors. What are you putting these people through just by having Cal here?

Your room is stifling. You toss and turn in the copious bedding until you decide enough is enough. You turn the room temperature all the way down and muffle every source of light, even the bedside clock. Eventually the warmth fades away, the cold vastness of space seeps in through the wall and the thick absence of light creates a disheartening serenity that suits your mood.

When you tell yourself that sleep won't come for you, there's too much to do, too much to think on, you're already out like a light.


	10. Something There That Wasn't There Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "As his mirror image, you sit with your lower back barely touching on his, the way he had in your prison cell on Nur. Air and static electricity are the only things between you. The ship's engine is loud down here but it's still quiet compared to the roar of your shared silence. He scootches back an inch so that you are firmly pressed to one another, solid and real."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know I said the last chapter would be part one of the finale but what I didn't say was that it would happen in three parts. Here's part two :) 
> 
> As always and forever, thank you so much for reading, for commenting, for the support, and the positivity! It means the WORLD to me to know that this story is so well enjoyed! Thank you! 
> 
> Enjoy!

The smell of burning metal in the air coats your tongue with a taste you'll never shake. There are embers floating in the air around you leaving little black soot marks wherever they land. The way they zip to and fro gives them a sentient quality that's charming until you realize where they're coming from. A streak of white hot lightning illuminates the sky behind the imposing fortress where Inquisitors are born. It's being consumed by a hungry wall of flames surrounded by an aura of electricity that pops and crackles from your fingertips.

Every cell in your body is exploding with energy and you feel right now as though you are the most powerful being in existence. The fury and rage fueling you is righteous and justified though a small buried part of you will always feel like it's wrong to give in to it. You suck in a deep breath, it's full of the misfortune that's occurred here and inside you it is converted into something tangible and dangerous. The pure energy of destruction. It's intoxicating.

With a start, you wake up thinking you're back in your cell and the rest was a dream. Cere, the flood, Vader, Cal...the lightning, but the smell of the flames eating up the fortress is too real in your memory. When you feel the bizarre slide of bacta gel on your fingertips it confirms the reality of your escape and centers you in the here and now. That really did happen. You smile up into the darkness. You really did do that.

You tell yourself not to look at the clock but after several sleepless minutes you see that only a few hours have passed. It's still the middle of the night. You need to sleep, and you need to let the others get theirs but the idea that you can simply walk out of the cell you've replicated for yourself is too delicious. Your mind is reeling and eventually you give up and pull on a pair of padded socks to muffle your footsteps. When you emerge into the hall, the ship is motionless and quiet.

Down in the cargo hold it's the same, though it's sole occupant is wide awake. You leave the hatch open just a sliver so as not to stumble into any boxes or fall on top of any Inquisitors but mostly to spare you both from the garish overhead lights.

The small glow from upstairs is enough to make out his shape. He's sitting up on the cot with his back to you, knees tucked up against his chest. In no way does he acknowledge your presence but he knows you're there.

When you're around Cal you're always doing things without thinking. You pad up beside him and climb onto the cot. As his mirror image, you sit with your lower back barely touching on his, the way he had in your prison cell on Nur. Air and static electricity are the only things between you. The ship's engine is loud down here but it's still quiet compared to the roar of your shared silence. He scootches back an inch so that you are firmly pressed to one another, solid and real.

There's so much you need to say and worse yet, to ask but now that you're here and there are no weapons or restraints between you, you're not sure how to proceed. He does you the favor of beginning.

“Why haven't you killed me?” His tone is as casual as though he could be asking you to pass the salt.

“I can't, I've tried.” You're honest.

“But you want to.” You can't tell if he's asking or telling.

“You'd deserve it if I did.”

“Mhm.”

“Are you even sorry for the things you've done? For what you put me through?” Cal straightens his spine and when he rolls his neck you feel it in the musculature on his back. It's distracting. Cal huffs out a long breath, thinking of what to say, how to tread this perilous ground. 

“What difference would it make if I was?” his voice is irritated, he pauses a beat before continuing so that you don't have to answer. “Pain and suffering with meaning is so rare, Y/N. Look at what it's made you, you're magnificent. I could never regret a process with such tangible results.”

You press your cheek into the top of your knee while you stare at the toes of your socks. Behind your unfocused eyes you imagine another world where Cal is a Jedi and he still says nice things about you but they're less horrifying. He'll always have moments like this. You thought somehow that you could dig into him and recover the padawan buried there, but that's not him. This is.

“I wish I could see good in you. I want to.”

He laughs “Why?”

“Because...” You don't want to say it. To think it makes you nauseous but it's the truth. He'll be incorrigible after this. Absolutely intolerable. “because I don't know what it is, I don't like it, but ...there is something...” You nudge backward and it sets him off balance. His bad hand darts out to catch himself from falling forward.

You can't get more descriptive than that. You down right refuse. In fact, you've already said too much, if you could recall the words you would but it's too late now.

Cal's head whips so hard over his shoulder it hurts. He groans and thinks twice about turning around but you can feel a vibrant energy coming off him where your backs touch.

It's suddenly too warm in the freezing cargo hold and your tailbone has started to ache. You shuffle onto your feet and pace in an attempt to release some of your nervous energy. Cal makes to move towards you but you hear the clank of his restraints. His glowing red eye follows you around the room.

He hasn't said a word and that's bizarre because Cal never shuts up. Has it finally happened? Is Inquisitor Cal Kestis at a loss for words?

You can't take it anymore.

“If you hadn't been sent to reconditioning were you going to help me escape?”

“It's why I was sent in the first place.”

“What would have happened next?”

Cal runs a hand through his hair and winces when his fingers pass over the aching red scar and his bandage gets stuck in the unruly mass. “Then we were going to hunt Imperials. Military personnel, government officials, investors, Emperors. That's what you said you want.”

It is what you want, more than anything. You've distracted yourself for as long as possible but the thought pops unbidden into your head every few minutes. You want to thin the herd of the Galactic Empire, even if it's just one at a time.

“Aren't you an Imp yourself?”

He shakes his head nonchalantly as though he was never the worst of the Empire's warrior elite.

“Aren't you supposed to be a Jedi? ” Answering a question with a question. He is the worst.

When you look at him, half of Cal's face glows in the distant light of the cracked open hatch. You believe him. He's never lied to you before, in fact you've found his honesty abrasive. His menacing mechanized eye shines out from the side shrouded in darkness. When you weigh the duality in him you're flooded with a feeling of sameness that both frightens and comforts you.

“I can't take you seriously when your hair looks like that.”

“I'll schedule something with my cosmetic droid.” He doesn't miss a beat.

You can't help the small snort escapes when you laugh and he looks incredibly charmed. You don't know how he manages to smile in his condition but if Cal is in any bodily discomfort, it's secondary to the pleasure of your snort.

“Come with me.” You move toward his wrist, still secured to the cot. When you reach to undo the restraint it comes undone before you can touch it. You can feel Cal smirking over your shoulder.

Each moment puts you further into new territory with him and it's as exciting as it is unsettling. You're finding it too easy, which only makes your next words all the more necessary.

“If you do anything to hurt or even frighten one person on this ship I'll kill you. I mean it, Cal, do you understand me?” When you turn to face him he's right there. His head lilts to one side as he measures something about you with his predatory gaze and then a small huff startles the hair framing your face. It makes your roots harden in the ground before him, unmoving and resolute. You lift your chin in a wordless challenge. Cal's not a boogeyman and he doesn't scare you, not anymore. 

As you both are in this moment, Cal is no match for you. He knows this himself but his arrogance knows no bounds. The moments before he responds become more incendiary the longer he waits. In a second the tension pops when he answers, his voice low and gravelly.

“Loud and clear, gorgeous.”

You climb the ladder ahead of him, urging silence and stealth so as not to wake any passengers or crewmates. The ship is still mercifully dark and quiet. Cal pulls himself up with one arm, one wrung at a time.

You take extra care to close the heavy hatch lid as quietly as possible. When you turn back, it is to discover that you've already been found out.

Byt has made a wall of himself in Cal's way, his face more grave than you've ever seen it. Cal squares up with an obnoxious grin that makes you want to fight him yourself. They're nose to nose as you quickly wedge yourself between them with a small yelp.

“What is he-” Byt starts at a normal volume that feels as loud as a siren cutting through the silence of the ship.

“Shhh! It's fine! Byt, it's ok. I've got this. There's nothing to worry about.” With one hand on Byt's shoulder you're pushing your back into Cal's chest in a desperate effort to create space between them. Their eyes are locked onto one another like a pair of Scazz about to tear each other apart over scraps.

“Are you kidding me with this? CAL.” 

Ugh, men.

“I'm not doing anything.” Cal lifts both his hands, palms forward, in surrender. Though his gaze is still provoking and devious.

Byt has the good sense to look at you. His scarred rose colored hand hovers over yours on his shoulder but lowers to his side as he reevaluates the situation and thinks better of it.

To you he says, “I defer to your judgement in this.” before turning a hard eye on Cal though he is addressing you still. “I will not be far.”

“Thank you, Byt. I'll be alright.” You squeeze and release his shoulder and it refocuses him. “Everything is fine.” You cement the idea in his mind. His heart is in the right place but the thought of Byt fighting Cal seems laughable. Though there seems to be a harder side to Byt that is less obvious than his gentle bed side manner. You shake the intrigue from your mind as you shove Cal down the hallway with one arm behind you, backing away from Byt.

You don't see it when Cal touches his wrapped thumb to the tip of his nose and wags his four fingers mockingly at the agitated twi'lek. Instead you call in a hushed voice “Try and get some more sleep. It's alright, I promise.” He doesn't look reassured but he relentls nonetheless. 

You pull Cal into the fresher before Byt can respond and the door closes with a loud whoosh. You lean your head back on the cold hard surface and release your frustration in a loud exhale.

“You said you'd be good.” This is already harder than you expected, and you were expecting it to be nearly impossible.

“I definitely didn't. Listen, I didn't hurt him and he doesn't seem scared to me. Those were the rules.” It's infuriating how he has an answer for everything.

You groan loudly as you close the toilet lid and sit Cal down on it.

“What are-”

“I'm giving you a haircut.” You pull open cabinet doors one after another and sort through Greez's copious toiletries until you pull the device out with an 'Aha'.

Cal's hand instinctively goes up into the luscious red locks on one side. His pride and glory. This reaction makes you sure that he hasn't actually seen what he's looking like these days so you step to the side and gesture towards the mirror.

When he sees his reflection, you have a feeling that Cal is absorbing more about himself than his need for a haircut. You wonder what it is he sees, if he's thinking of the other Cal in the gold mirror. His face betrays nothing at all but his eyes give him away completely. They grow wide and sad before he blinks away the emotion. Then his brow sets and his heterochromatic gaze hardens into stone. He looks at you and gives a curt nod before taking his seat.

“Do it.”

You step in front of him, armed in one hand with Cere's buzzer. When you reach out to comb through the longer side with your fingers Cal shrinks away like a whipped dog. It's entirely instinct and it breaks your heart. He clears his throat and straightens pretending to be unbothered by the idea of a soft touch. He's looking at your feet with an uneasy but determined expression.

When your fingers pass gently through his hair and over his scalp, Cal's nostrils flair. His chest heaves and he sucks in a sharp breath as he battles the discomfort. When you retract your hand and he grabs it a little too hard a little to quickly but releases it when he sees your face. He clears his throat again.

“It's fine, go ahead.” He seems far from alright but you nod.

“Okay. I'll go slow.”

You repeat the motion exactly, to make it easy on him. His mouth flattens into a thin line and his brows pinch together but he doesn't move away. When you've brushed the fiery red hair away from his face and start up the buzzer it makes Cal jump. You feel like you're looking at him in the Chair and your heart tightens with anger. Suddenly you're her again, the one that burned down a building with fire and lightning.

“Cal, look at me.” He doesn't respond right away so you take his chin in your fingers and tilt his head back.

When he has no choice but to look you deep in the eye, you run your thumb across his chin tracing a line under his bottom lip. While he's entranced you gradually run the clipper over his head cutting a swathe through the unruly mass of red hair. The first clump flutters to the tiled floor like a dried autumn leaf.

“Don't look away.” There's flint in your voice and Cal swallows hard. He couldn't take his eyes off you if he tried. Slowly but surely the hair comes off in rows.

When the front is done you shift yourself to stand behind him. You push his head forward so that his chin is on his chest and Smooth your hand over the hair on the nape of his neck. You can't see it when Cal's eyes flutter shut. He's adjusting very quickly to nonviolent touch.

You attempt to steady his head and mistakenly place your hand over the throbbing scar on his left side. He hisses sharply and it jolts you. Things were going too well.

“Sorry!” You say a bit too loudly. He doesn't say anything and you continue working. Apologizing to the Eleventh Brother feels strange. It's almost as though you never stabbed him in the eye while he was choking you to death. That memory feels like it's from another lifetime. In a way, it was two different people. He doesn't say it but the familiarity of the pain is grounding for him. 

The domesticity of the circumstance is almost comical. Cal hasn't moved a muscle. No cringing, no flinching, not even a shuffle to adjust his seat. He's staring blankly at his feet while you work, eyes far away. You wonder where he's gone, if it's anything like your windy shore under the starry night sky in your mind. It surprises you when he pipes up.

“Nothings changed about what I want.”

“Hm?” You genuinely didn't hear him, the clipper is loud. He turns his head to face you in a pivotal moment and the buzzer protests the sudden movement. You pull the device away in time to save his ear but an extra short slice interrupts the hairline at the nape of Cal's neck. Immediately you start giggling and then prepare to defend yourself.

“That wasn't my fault!” He doesn't care. You're not sure he's even noticed. He's so focused on his own thoughts. The air of seriousness around him unsettles you and so you're caught off guard when he puts his hand over yours on the clipper to move it out of his face.

When his skin touches the device he stutters and whatever he had planned to say evaporates. Cal's grip on the buzzer intensifies and his face contorts for a moment before he gathers himself again. You don't understand what you're seeing but it reminds you of when he first held your lightsaber.

“What's her name? The one that came for you?”

“Cere. What's happening to you?”

“This is hers. She used to have long hair when she was a Jedi. It hurt her to cut it off but she had to change after the fortress.” He hands the device back to you and rubs his eyes. Apparently that's all the explanation you'll be getting. You've heard of Jedi having powers like this, though it's rare.

“Just like you.”

“Yeah, you're next.” He teases. The thought of Cal the barber makes you laugh. When you snort his whole face lights up. He's not used to having people laugh at his jokes.

The trying nature of your interactions with him today have been draining for you both. Every second you spend with him brings you deeper into formative uncharted water. It's constantly scary and new and you're both doing and saying things you normally wouldn't, not with anyone else.

“Sit down and let me finish.” Your tone is firm but also warm. Cal plops back down to sit and you run the clipper over his newly shorn head to catch any uneven patches. When the haircut is completed to your satisfaction you start to dust clumps from his shoulers. Forgetting that Cal had at first reacted like a timid animal, you bat the small loose hairs from behind his ears and lean close to blow them off his neck. That does startle him. He stands abruptly but collects his scattered parts quickly. You've never seen him so vulnerable. Your heart breaks for what he's endured but after what you've seen Cal do, a small part of you is kind of enchanted seeing him so humanized.

"Done." You gesture again at the mirror, urging Cal to have a look.

He tilts his head this way and that way assessing the damage and rubs the back of his neck, feeling the stubble on his fingertips. You stand behind him in the mirror feeling satisfied with your work until you're stalled by the intensity of his eyes on you in the reflection. Your shoulders sink, he must really hate it.

"I was trying to tell you before, that what I want is the same. It hasn't changed."

"What?" You can recall bits and pieces of that conversation. Parts of your time in the fortress are missing from your memory as your body and mind were only barely functional.

"I got a taste of it when I saw you in the flames on Nur but that wasn't enough. I always want more." He struggles to find the right words, his eyes dart away from you while he thinks and then pin you through the mirror again.

"I'm committed to what I saw you do..." He works his jaw back and forth chewing on his final words. You know very well that there's no taking them back once they've been uttered. So much has already been said and done that's irreversible. Like so many other things, he knows his choice in this is an illusion. He's the moth and you're the flame. For him this can only go one way. 

"...committed to you."

You try to say words, any words, but have forgotten how. Your mouth opens when you think you've got something but there's nothing but an eery wind howling through your brain. So instead your slack jaw just hangs open. He's enjoying how dumb you look.

You weren't sure how you were expecting this to play out but a pledge of allegiance from the Eleventh Brother is definitely a surprise. Perhaps most shocking is how easily you believe him.

Cal's life as it was is expired. Now, he has nothing and no one other than his bizarre and massively complicated tie to you that comes with the grandeur of serial homicide. Honestly this is best case scenario for Cal. Also free haircuts.

“Good, because nothing's changed about what I want either and I could use your help.”

A fiendish smile splits Cal's face from ear to ear and you recall each and every time you looked upon that same smile and feared for your life. This time instead of a ghoulish red glow Cal is illuminated in the unflattering white light of the Mantis' fresher and you're standing together in a pile of hair.

Before, when Cal would smile this way you knew what came next. It was a prelude to battle, the start of a chase, something terrifying and exciting. Now, that's only half true.

"Atta girl." 

He turns away from the mirror to face you and the world around you falls away. You'd never noticed before now how long and lovely Cal's eyelashes are, his close cropped hair really lets them shine. His eyes dart over every inch of your face but repeatedly return to your mouth. Then, in an extremely predictable fashion, Cal and his big fat mouth drag the charged moment through the mud.

“I'm glad I didn't strangle you on Kashyyyk.” he chuckles at the recollection. 

The departure in mood is so abrupt you nearly fall over.

“Yeah. That was a close one.” You deadpan, unamused. "Good thing I stabbed your eye out." 

He thinks that's hilarious. 

There's a loud rap on the durasteel door and the suddenness of it frightens you half to death. Everyone is supposed to be sleeping. How long have you been in here?

“Other people need to use the fresher you know!” Greez shouts. He sounds perturbed. You hear him mumble through the door "You think I'd get to use the facilities on my own ship." 

Right, you forgot about the other people.

You can barely believe that the Eleventh Brother is on your side, under your wing, ready to do your bidding in pursuit of righteous vengeance againt the the Empire. This impossible reality is your doing. You, who have levelled a fortress with nothing but pure rage and unfiltered power. You who survived the relentless Inquisition and did not break. You can do this. 

It will be the hardest thing you've ever done, but you will get Cal Kestis to play nice with the people on this ship. Even just to be civil to them...to tolerate them....at the very least to exist with them....

You have to get him off this ship.


	11. Classic Whodunnit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You hear your dead Master's voice inside your head, though you can't make out the words, only the tone. He sounds distressed and full of admonishment. Somehow the sight before you has negated your other senses. Your nemesis on his knees before you, eyes full of … you're not sure what. It makes you dizzy to imagine big bad Darth Vader the same way; any and all your enemies even. The darkness inside you drinks in this feeling and its roots spread just a little further, grip you just a little tighter."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it turns out I don't know what the heck I'm talking about when it comes to this story's installments. Please stop listening to me about how many more chapters or parts there will be. I have no idea what I'm saying. Though I surely do have an ending that I'm working towards. I feel like we'll be there soon but I said that several chapters ago. It could be the next one but it might not. 
> 
> Either way please enjoy this one! And thank you forever and always for reading, commenting, and reaching out, or privately enjoying this story! I'm so glad and completely humbled.

From a young age you had at least a loosely formed plan for the direction your life would take. You aspired at first to pass your initiation trials, then you hoped to be matched with a worthy Master that would help you learn and grow. Naturally you would graduate to Jedi Knight, perhaps ahead of schedule, thanks to your propensity for creative solutions and enhanced skill with the blade. Then you would achieve the rank of Jedi Master and take your place on the council, nourishing generations of young Jedi minds and maintaining peace throughout the galaxy until the end of your days. 

This chain of goals in regards to your life's expectations withered while you were still young. The Emperor Palpatine and his discreetly laid plans made sure of that. 

Even after the suddenness of Order 66, the most universally simultaneous execution and life altering few hours, nothing could prepare you for the situation in which you currently found yourself embroiled. 

The kitchen and sitting area of the Stinger Mantis is feeling crowded these days as the crew and passengers gather for breakfast. Cere and Greez are seated at the table proper with the Rodian girl. Byt Ilan sits on the lower level along with a human you haven't really had the time to notice before now. 

A quiet man rather slight of frame but with very clever hands. Every time you look at him his fingers are moving, fiddling with with something, even if it's only a thread from his worn clothing. 

Across from him there's a pair of Calamari. One standing, one sitting. You assume they're related because of their similar coloring and particular closeness. They're close enough to touch at all times. 

You lean back on the kitchen counter tearing a small bun of portion bread and worrying it into even smaller pieces. The air is so thick with tension there is no room for your appetite. Cal has helped himself to the last chair at the table.

Delightfully unbothered by the awkwardness, Cal leans back comfortably with the posture of a lounging cat while tearing the lid from a fruit cup he found in the back of the cooler. You had been saving that.

All eyes are on the Inquisitor while the spectators gawk at his nonchalance with mouths full of half chewed food and trembling mugs of caff.

“Who died?” he scoffs while shoveling a hearty portion of cubed fruit into his mouth. 

“As I was saying,” Greez continues laboriously “we should be in the Corellain System by tomorrow. Pick a planet and you can all start your new lives. There's Selonia, Drall, Tralus, Talus, and of course Corellia.” 

“It isn't much, but I can spare a few credits for each of you. Enough for your next meal or maybe transport if that's what you'd like.” Cere's gentle tone rings out into the room. 

“Oof, whatever you do, don't pick Selonia. They have sea monsters there that make the things on Mon Cala look like guppies. I tracked a Nautolan there a few years ago. Didn't even get him, this huge fish with crazy teeth the length of TIE wings just gobbled him up. ” Cal laughs out loud as memories come back to him. 

The Calamari bristle visibly, one scoffs out loud. The Rodian is unable to hide her trembling hand and with a small squeak she drops her fork. Her chair skids backward as she runs from the kitchen area toward the back of the ship. 

“Cheppa!” Byt calls after her before getting up to follow. 

Cal cranes his neck following the twi'lek out of the room and yanks the spoon he's using like a lollipop out of his mouth dumbly. He has the good sense not to ask if it was something he said. 

When you look back the room is filled with faces in various states of agitation. Fingers being the most mildly irritated. Cere is doing her best to keep her face neutral but all that does is enhance the disheartened emotions that slip through. Greez wears open disdain on his face but it's difficult for you to take that entirely serious since it is a very short step away from his normal expression. The Calamari are practically hissing at Cal. They look angry and indignant, you surmise that it's possible these two are Mon Cala nobility, possible prisoners of war. Either way their very clear distaste is understandable.

Byt reappears in the doorway looking like he gets paid to frown. 

Your eyes link up with Cere's and she inclines her head down the hall toward the cargo hold door, wordlessly indicating that it's time for Cal's exit. Also understandable. The air is too tense for your tastes anyway.

When you put your hand on his shoulder, Cal's head whips sideways and Cheppa's discarded fork falls from his fist to the table with a loud clank. You hadn't noticed him grab it. 

“Come on.” You speak lowly but it's still the loudest sound on the ship as everyone stares in awkward silence. 

Cal scans the room with a look of disdain, lingering for a moment on Byt, before settling his eyes on you. 

“Come with me.” Your tone is softer than you had intended. 

“Well when you put it like that.” You'd like to slap the impish grin off his face right here in front of everyone. Instead you grab a few more ration bars from the counter, while pushing Cal toward the waiting hatch door.

“See you soon.” Cal tosses the remark over his shoulder to his adoring fans, just to make sure the tension on the ship is at its absolute highest. 

Below deck it's cool and a bit noisy with the engine so near. The sound is consistent and combines soothingly with the beam of light shining in from the cracked hatch door. You toss a ration bar Cal's way. He wasn't even looking but it falls right into his hand. It's those Inquisitor reflexes.

“I don't have to cuff you do I?” You lean on a large box of cargo and unwrap your breakfast noisily. 

Cal holds his forearms out to you in supplication, willingness written clear across his face. When your lip curls the tiniest bit he smiles. It's not maniacal or fiendish either, simply pleased. 

“Just checking.” You allow yourself to include a teasing lilt in your voice but as soon as you hear yourself you regret it. 

“You understand why it's better for you to be down here, right? They're frightened of you and that's understandable.” You hope he can be reasoned with, even if he is going along. 

“Oh, I don't care about them. Meditate with me.” Again, you can't be sure if he's asking or telling. You've decided that there will be no telling.

“Say please.” The playfulness hasn't left but there's steel in your voice. 

Cal's posture shifts and straightens, like a weed leaning into the sunlight. He shuffles up to you while unabashedly staring and stops short when your toes touch. You're all confidence until he leans forward bringing his mouth close to your ear. His breath makes the fly away hairs dance and tickle your neck. 

“Pretty please?” Hearing him say that does something to you. Something you don't know how to process and so you shove it away. 

The inexplicable feeling nearly bowls you over in force when Cal lowers himself onto his knees in front of you, resting his hands on his legs, waiting for you to join him. 

Since your emergence from the Fortress Inquisitorius you feel as though every moment is a new learning experience. Your life isn't what it was, you aren't the person you were before, your relationships with others aren't what they were. Constantly, you are trying to understand the new way of things. It's daunting to think that so many of those answers are up to you.

You feel as though you've stepped from one dimension into another, all the same characters but a different story. 

You hear your dead Master's voice inside your head, though you can't make out the words, only the tone. He sounds distressed and full of admonishment. Somehow the sight before you has negated your other senses. Your nemesis on his knees before you, eyes full of … you're not sure what. It makes you dizzy to imagine big bad Darth Vader the same way; any and all your enemies even. The darkness inside you drinks in this feeling and its roots spread just a little further, grip you just a little tighter. 

You attempt to clear your throat in the form of an undignified croak as you join Cal on the floor, mimicking his position sitting back on your heels. He scoots up just a bit so that your knees touch. You inhale together and the outward breath mingles in the small space between you as you attempt to empty your mind. You deposit the distracting thoughts about the thin material separating the skin of your knees into a box and close the lid. 

Rather than peacefully linking yourself to the careful network of the living Force you throw yourself into the bubbling stream of it, submerged in and surrounded by its energy. 

First, you're able distinguish Cal in front of you. He is somehow an exuberant concentration of Force energy and also a consummate void, a perfect balance that teeters on the edge of ruin. While it is something of a marvel you can't say it surprises you that Cal Kestis is a living breathing anomaly.

When your net is cast out further you feel gatherings of stars pass below you with only the ship to separate you. Above, there is the sensation of moving bodies. You feel Cere shine out like a bright light, though you sense a seed of darkness inside her growing shoots and leaves of its own. You are perhaps more alike than you originally thought. 

The Force is tinged with a general air of uneasiness that passes through the passengers, though it comes to you most clearly through Cere, a Force user. 

A jarring clank echoes out through the cargo hold and you're drawn from meditation abruptly. After your time in the fortress, playing catch up with reality should be familiar but the shock still startles you as you are plunged into pure darkness and the shaft of light from above deck is swallowed up, followed by the sound of fastening locks. 

Even over the low roar of the ship's engines the next sound you hear is unmistakable through the hold's ceiling. Your heart skips several beats as three blaster bolts are fired followed by a heavy thump. When you bolt up onto your feet the top of your head cracks the already standing Cal on the chin and you see stars. 

“Ahhhh bit ma tunn” His groan is mixed with laughter as you hear him spit on the floor. Even as allies you can't stop hurting each other. It's such a common occurrence that you refuse to comment on it, especially when there's trouble in the air. 

“What was that?” you ask, the worry clear in your voice, as you rub the lump forming on top of your skull. You feel for the ladder with your arms cast out in front of you, clumsy in the dark. 

Cal's footsteps echo past as the luminescent red glow of his eye bounces by. 

“Are you looking for the ladder?” 

“Of course I am!” 

“Well you're getting warmer.” The absurdity makes you stop short and you drop you arms with a loud slap. 

“Colder.”

It's never too late, you could still kill him. Instead you sigh and stretch out your hands again as you move forward, toward the blinking red light. 

“Warmer. Warmer. You're getting red hot, gorgeous.” Your fingers touch on the cold durasteel of a ladder wrung. You bolt up each step and push on the hatch with all your might. 

“It's locked.” You hear Cal's voice from below you. 

“Obviously.” You groan as you continue to push for some reason. 

“We heard it lock, not sure why you had to push on it to see that.” Cal crosses his arms and leans casually on the wall. 

You could melt the hinges right off this door if only you had your lightsaber. When you remember how he had sliced it in two, so much of the warmth you had begun to feel for Cal bubbles up and evaporates. In your memory you hear your own bone chilling cry. “Bastard!” 

You resist the urge to throttle Cal and channel all your frustration into an intense Force blast. You barely manage to hold on to the ladder as the blast comes back at you. You feel it loosen from its mooring in the ceiling but the hatch door is resolute and unmoved. 

Your half healed wounds ache after absorbing your own projected power. At the risk of reopening them and undoing Byt's hard work you drop off the ladder onto your feet. 

“Damn, a lightsaber would really be handy right now, huh?” Where does he get the audacity for comments like these? 

You fix the red dot with a deadly stare. You can't see him but you tell yourself Cal was successfully frightened by your intimidating look rather than intrigued by it. Though you already know which is true. Arguing won't get you anywhere, the past is the past. Holding grudges will only keep you mired back there. 

Ok. Time to think, assess, then act.

The ship hasn't stopped moving, so you haven't been docked or captured. A stowaway? No, it's a passenger, but why? 

There are bounties on all your heads, even before the fortress. You don't know the prisoners but to be held on Nur they must have been of particular renown. How foolish it was of you to believe that not everyone would be grateful enough to let a mint's worth of bounties pass them by. Especially all wrapped up in one ship. You had falsely believed that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. 

Fingers. The human escapee had played the coolest character. He was the most detached and the least affected by Cal's abhorrent nature. He is perhaps accustomed to these types. To say nothing of his itchy trigger fingers.

Even so, he is terribly outnumbered, he would have to enlist help. It isn't difficult to imagine the Calamari joining a mutiny just from being in a room with them for ten minutes. Though your Jedi nature asks that you not make any assumptions, it seems unlikely to be Byt or the frightened Cheppa.

First and foremost on your mind now should be getting through this door. While you catalog the assets available to you other than cargo crates and a beat up sleeping cot, you hear Cal at the other end of the room. You take tentative steps toward a loud creak of metal followed by a series of switch flips and then a beep. 

The access panel! The Mantis' basic maintenance boards are down here! In your excitement you walk right into Cal's side.

“Cal, that's so clever! WAIT!” You grab wildly at where you believe his hands are working and pull them away from the fuses.

“You're not going to space them are you?!” He tears himself from your grasp and shoves you lightly out of his space. You fight the urge to feel guilty for believing he's capable of something like that, of course he is. Every second with this new post Inquisitor Cal is a mystery. 

“I'm killing the lights. If they want to see, someone will have to come turn them back on.” He sounds too bothered to be sparing the time to answer your question. That the Eleventh Brother has been working alone for years shows in his brusqueness. That will not due. 

You hear the telltale sound of machinery powering down and the rustle of heavy footfall above your heads. 

When Cal gets the results he's looking for his tone changes again to something more satisfied. 

“The trap is set and now we wait.” 

It feels like all the air has been sucked out of the room as you wait for the clanking sound of the hatch lock coming undone. Cal is on one side of the ladder and you're on the other. The calm and patient joy of a stalking hunter emanates from him in waves. His fist love will always be the hunt. You wonder for a moment at his home planet. He probably doesn't know. You don't. Not all but many Jedi come to the Order as infants. Anything before that doesn't matter.

You hear them on the other side, feeling for the lock and latch. You may not be able to see either but you are plenty more accustomed to the dark. When the door opens they expect you to rush up the ladder and so three green blaster bolts shoot straight down into the hold as a warning.

“Stay back, down there! I want you both up against the wall! My friend's got a blaster rifle with night vision. Any sudden movements are you're dead.” The Calamari's voice shakes with fear. You can feel Cal smiling from across the way and when the red light in his eye flares to a terrible brightness you rush forward. 

Reaching out in the Force you push the latch door open. It swings hard into the second shooter's head and you hear them thump to the ground above. Using the Force, Cal pulls the nervous Calamari down the ladder to hit the floor. Something breaks with a resounding crack. There's a terrible cry that sounds like its coming from underwater. 

The blaster goes off and the bolt bounces from the wall to the space between your feet. The smell of scorched metal floats up to your nose. You scowl deeply as a wave of rage overcomes you. The brief flash of green light was enough for you to locate the weapon and yank it from the perpetrator. You imagine the cool metal and surprising weight of the blaster in your hand and the Force makes it so. 

Cal is the only one who can see and so he suspends the disarmed traitor in the air before pulling him into his feral grasp, a prisoner again. 

“Here! Aim here, I've got him.” Cal knows that his floating red eye is the only thing you can see. Maybe he'll adjust to teamwork more readily than you think. 

“With pleasure.” You don't try to mask the joy in your voice. You couldn't begin to count the times you imagined taking aim at Cal.

“No! Please!” The Calamari's pleads disappear in the darkness under the sound of blaster fire.

A long beat of silence follows until you hear the thump of a moist body onto the floor. Cal's red eye shines out at you and grows larger as he steps in close. You don't realize how close until you feel his breath on your face. 

“There's that face again.” He sounds out of breath but you're not sure why. 

“What's taking so long down there!?” You hear a voice from above, distant and angry.

Cal puts his hand over yours on the blaster. He could easily creep up there and end this ordeal in a matter of seconds, before anyone else knew what was happening. It's hard to admit but Cal's infrared eye has certainly made him useful. Still, something makes your grip on the weapon tighten. 

You hear your own voice ring out again in your mind. 'You son of a bitch! You're not getting your way!' You recall the words from your deadly struggle on Kashyyyk, moments before you plugged your Master's sliced kyber crystal into his eye.

His voice draws you back to the present. 

“Y/N, don't you trust me?” His devious chuckle doesn't help. Without responding your hand comes away from the blaster and you feel him glow with satisfaction. You're uneasy but resigned that this situation calls for Cal's help. He trusts you enough to shoot at an enemy in his arms in complete darkness, you have to return the sentiment sooner or later if you're going to work together.

He flies up the ladder and you very slowly follow in his wake. By the time you're halfway up you hear a shot ring out but he's already moved on. As you reach the top of the ladder, the final wrung is slick with warm liquid. The metallic tang of blood fills the air as you climb over the body of the second Calamari. 

When you finally get to your feet a second shot reverberates through the ship followed by the telltale slump of lifelessness. 

Even in the dark you know the way down the hall but you trip on something, or someone rather. There's a weak groan from underneath you and somehow you recognize the feel of Byt's forehead. When your dry hand comes off his side wet you recall the first shot of blaster fire that echoes through the ship after you'd been sealed in the hold. Poor man, has he been bleeding out this whole time? 

“Y/N? Is that you?” You hear Cere's voice across the room. 

“Nope.” Cal answers before you can. 

“Ah, jeez.” Greez can't help but cry out as his hopes of being saved are dashed. 

“I'm here.” You allay fears by making your presence known. “Cal, the lights.” 

His footfall passes you by and you hear him descend again into the cargo hold. Moments later every bulb on the ship crackles to life and suddenly it's too bright. 

You lift yourself off of poor Byt, who is still breathing but his pink hue is considerably diminished. 

“Byt, can you hear me?” He nods minimally. 

A hand extends toward you holding an extra large bacta patch. The offering comes from Fingers the human which sends a bolt of shock through you, traitorous organizer that he is.

When you glance around the space dazedly you see Cere lift herself off her knees, helping Greez onto his feet. Splayed out on the floor behind her is the lifeless form of Cheppa, the Rodian girl. Turns out, she was right to be afraid of Cal. Inwardly you apologize to Fingers, though he has no idea that you'd wronged him.

Cheppa's huge black eyes shine in the kitchen light but the inward spark is gone. The look of it reminds you of the void in Force energy that's part of Cal. You're reluctant to admit there's something about it that you like. The dark Force inside of you spreads its leaves a little wider. 

Your reverie is broken when Byt groans again. You lift his shirt to assess the damage. Cere hands you a wet towel from the kitchen and you staunch the bleeding before fastening the patch over his wound, sticky side down. Cal leans in the doorway with his arms folded over his chest and a childish frown. His jealousy is so clearly broadcast, you don't need the Force to feel it. He looks like he's considering shooting himself in the side. 

“You know, I get hurt all the time.” Cal blurts from the sidelines. He bristles when he is duly ignored

Fingers and Cere pull Byt into a chair and set him up with a glass of water. He'll live. 

He coughs and sputters the drink before wiping his wrist over his mouth, re hydrating dried blood there. His voice is raspy but he manages in his heavy Rylothian accent. 

“Thank you” looking first to you and then to Cal, “both of you.” Cal wrinkles his nose. 

“We'd all be dead or worse, prisoners of the Empire, if it wasn't for you two. Thank you.” Cere's voice is earnest and heartfelt. She looks reservedly overjoyed actually. While lamenting the young girl led astray by greed and fear dead at her feet, she is also filled with hope looking at Cal's deep dark grimace. There's evidence standing in the doorway that there isn't such a place too deep or dark to return from as she had feared.

“Thank you for saving us.” Short and sweet. This is apparently the first time you've heard Fingers speak and now it's hard to imagine someone with a soft dulcet voice like his turning in his rescuers and fellow prisoners for money. You chide yourself for being led astray by your assumptions.

“Yeah, thanks, Kid, and I guess that means you too, Red.” Even Greez hops on the train of gratitude.

“Are you all finished? I killed people that couldn't even see me. Nothing is easier.” Cal sneers, uncomfortable with the positive reinforcement.

“He means 'you're welcome'” You quickly counter, to his chagrin.

“You sound like idiots.” He tacks on, to cancel out your translation.

The truth is you pointed Cal at some bad people and he turned them red. That's what he does. That's who he is. While he may not have saved the day of his own volition or from the goodness of his heart he's still done a good thing, whether he likes it or not. 

The blood, that does not belong to you, is starting to congeal and cool on your clothing. The Mantis's living space is littered with bodies. It is a grizzly scene to be sure but somehow your heart feels lighter than it has in a long time.


	12. Bittersweet Departures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Your life's calling, unraveled in a matter of weeks, was devastating at first but now without the heavy weight of living up to the title of Jedi, you can begin to find the balance of light and dark within yourself and become the force user you've always been meant to. The proper balance of give and take, of life and death, of energy and void, one foot on each plane, commander and servant both. That, or fall into ruin. On this path you've chosen those are the choices and you won't turn back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always and for all time, thank you so so much for reading and enjoying this story! I love writing it and its such a joy to hear from you! Y'all are neat.
> 
> Enjoy!

The fractal form of a red arthropod is scooped up off the ground in the muscular arms of an imposing purple biped. The field of battle is marked all around in black and white squares. Surrounding figures of various creatures all in preschool colors with varying amounts of eyes, arms and legs shuffle idly as red and purple duke it out.

Ultimately, the many legged red creature reminiscent of a centipede wraps itself around the purple ogre and squeezes until it crumples onto its knees and blinks out of existence. The insect screeches victoriously and Byt slams his pink fist down on the table making all the little combatants jump. Immediately regretting his outburt, Byt's fingers fan out and he takes a deep steadying breath.

“It's very low of you to cheat this way.” His voice is controlled and measured but you can hear the anger bubbling below the surface.

“In what way?” Cal isn't even looking at the board. He's cleaning dirt from beneath his nails and flicking it into the distance to land somewhere on the table they all eat on.

“I don't know but you are. I am very good at Dejarik.” Byt's eyes scan the battlefield furiously.

“Apparently not.” Cal chuckles.

Steepling his fingers, Byt chews his lip and stares at the idling creatures on the table as though they might tell him how to come out on top despite Cal's trickery. He winces and places a hand over the bandage on his side after leaning forward a bit too far.

Cal hangs off the side of his chair, severely bored.

The Mantis is queued up to begin its decent to Corellia's surface, in line behind a slew of cruisers and freighters about their various businesses. Could be a while. The bizarre energy of time spent in waiting hangs over the entire ship.

Fingers, the honest but very quiet human, who you've learned is actually named Parkem, uses the time wisely by napping. His perpetually moving hands are tucked up against his sides as he's crossed his arms over his chest. Parkem's head has lolled back and his mouth hangs open slightly as he sleeps, the rest looks deep and fulfilling. You want to be happy for him, that such a thing is possible after spending time in the fortress Inquisitorius, but mostly it makes you jealous.

Leaning in your customary spot on the kitchen counter, you nurse a mug of caff. More letting the steam float up your nose than actually drinking any. Your fixed and unfocused eyes gaze into the random space in front of you, which happens to be Cal's bouncing knee, as your mind wanders. You've been going over and over what you want to say and how to say it but nothing seems just right.

Cere appears from out of the cockpit and it jars you from your reverie. She's examining the other Corellian planets in the system at the holotable when you disrupt the unusually domestic scene.

“CERE, THERE YOU ARE.” You shout a bit too loudly for the distance between you, yes she's across the ship but you're still on the same ship. All eyes turn to you as you clear your throat awkwardly, adjusting your volume.

“Can we talk?”

“Of course, Y/N. What is it?” She's making her way over so no one has to shout.

“Maybe somewhere more-” You point your thumb towards the back of the ship instead of finishing your sentence.

Cal eyes you skeptically as Cere joins you in heading toward the workshop at the very end of the Mantis. You poignantly ignore his inquisitive glance. Instead you breath in confidence and exhale doubt as you prepare to tackle this mighty feat of talking to your mentor.

In this remote area of the ship, Cere leans on the workbench as you sit and stand several times deciding best how to begin.

“You're leaving.” She cuts straight to the core of the matter. It puts you at an even deeper loss for words. Your eyes ask her how she knows. Somehow she understands.

“You've changed. It's not your fault.” Cere is careful to make that clarification.

“I still believe in rebuilding the Order but … finding the holocron... those children... It's not safe for them. It never will be with the Empire the way it is now.”

Cere's face falls even though you believe she knew this all along. It hurts you to salt this wound but you've already begun. In one swift statement you pull the up the scab, revealing the fresh new skin.

“To expose them to the Emperor would be a death sentence. We can't protect them, Cere.”

She's clearly disappointed but Cere is nothing if not a reasonable woman. This unwelcome idea had crossed her own mind many times.

“Then we're abandoning the holocron?” She asks dejectedly.

“Leave it buried or destroy it, so long as Vader doesn't get his hands on it. But Cere, … it's like you said. I've changed.” The hardest part of beginning this conversation is over, you've stopped fidgeting and take a seat on the bench where you first awoke on the Mantis, a lifetime ago.

“The holocron isn't my mission anymore. I'm so sorry that I can't see that through with you. The Force is guiding me uh, in another direction.” It's not like you to leave business unfinished, pages unturned, but there's no doubt in your mind that this move is right. That you're closer to your true purpose now than you've ever been.

“I saw the lightning.”Cere nods, as though that explains it all. “What's your plan then?”

You hesitate to say it out loud. It's felt so right in your head but once it touches the air the words are real. The transition is begun and part of you is afraid it will sound absurd. When you look up from your feet you steel yourself.

“I'm...going to make it safer for the next generation of Jedi, for everyone under the Empire's thumb. One Imp at a time.”

Cere's eyes harden, it's as she feared.

“That's a dark path. You're going to do this alone?” She already knows but she wants to hear you say it.

“Cal has names, locations, contacts. It's everything I'd need.”

“I understand. You think I don't but I do. Just be honest with me, is it really to make the galaxy safer?”

You weren't expecting a question like that. When you look at Cere again it startles you to see the spectral figures of padawans gone behind her. The ghostly forms that had kept your company on Nur watch you with Cere's unflinching gaze. Apparently no amount of bacta gel and bedrest can undo all the injuries of the Inquisitor's foretress. Suddenly the room feels crowded.

The projection of Trilla Suduri is dressed in the beige robes of a padawan. She looks younger but as haunted as you knew her in life. Her hand comes up to rest on Cere's shoulder. Her Master remains unaware as Trilla commands your attention with her intense stare. You can't be sure she says the words aloud but when her lips move all you can hear are her last words.

“Avenge us.”

Each specter takes a turn at uttering the two words. Some are familiar and some are unknown to you.

The Ninth Sister is there, looking dire in her padawan robes.

Rosey cheeked Cal Kestis asks for vengeance, you don't dare to linger too long on him. The Cal that could have been.

You see a younger but just as troubled version of Cere Junda, standing beside herself. Long beautiful dreadlocks spill down her back as she says the words with stony eyes.

Cheppa the Rodian, and the deceitful Calamari dare to ask you for vengeance. Things may have gone another way for them if it hadn't been for the Empire. You didn't know them, but you know they deserved better.

You see Jedi elders from your youth. A young knight stands out to you, dressed in dark Jedi robes with a long scar running down his handsome face. With haughty confidence he says the words and you feel like you should know him, but you don't.

You see your Master and you wait to hear him demand vengeance for his life and that of his brothers and sisters in the Order but they never come. Vengeance, retribution, for yourself or for others is not the Jedi way. It's an act of self serving that can do nothing for those who have been lost.

Anger spreads through your heart while you continue to wait for the words in vain. Why can't he give you this? Why can't you do it for him?

Vengeance is always for yourself.

The eyes of your dead Master grow sad and you feel his disappointment pass through you like a cold wind.

“Y/N?” Cere, the true and present Cere, touches your arm and suddenly the overcrowded room  
feels empty but for the two of you.

“Of course it's to make the galaxy safer” you lie. “That's all I want.”

If your Master's disappointed expression wrenched your heart at all Cere's yanks it from your chest. She knows.

She's been where you are but she had the good sense to turn back. It's too late for that, too late for you. There's nothing she can say to turn you around, especially if you don't want to. She knows that too.

“I know it's not the Jedi way. I'd never ask you to compromise your beliefs to be part of something like this, but it will work. It's what I need to do.”

Cere nods her assent. There's no changing your mind, that's clear. Part of her may not even want to. You're doing something she's dreamt of taking on herself but at a cost that she refused to pay, one too high for Jedi.

“Cal and I are going to disembark on Corellia and make our way from there.” You expect her to argue. So soon? Are you sure? She doesn't.

“Then I have something for you.” Cere rummages through the workbench drawers until she locates a bundle wrapped in cloth and hands it to you.

“I know you like to dual wield but never did with your Master's single saber.” You uncover two lightsaber hilts made from a modified double bladed Inquisitor's, Trilla's, two halves of a neat circle. As you run your hand over the weapons you hear Suduri's last words echo through the air though the specters have vanished.

“I hoped you could heal the crystals. They're still red. You can try but it might not work. They know things.” That's as opinionated on the subject Cere would like to get. She's a good woman who's too hard on herself.

“Thank you, Cere, for this, for everything. I'm sorry I failed you too.”

She's already shaking her head when she wraps her arms around you. You hadn't known until now how badly you needed a hug.

“No, you haven't failed anyone, you've been through so much. Listen to the Force, Y/N. It asks for different things from each of us. Your path isn't what we thought but that doesn't make it wrong.”

She wipes a tear from your cheek when you pull away. When had you started to cry?

“We all have darkness, just don't lose yourself to it. You're a good person, Y/N. A bad Jedi, but a good person.”

Somehow it doesn't sting to share a laugh over the fact, which is shocking to you.

Your life's calling unraveled in a matter of weeks was devastating at first but now without the heavy weight of living up to the title of Jedi, you can begin to find the balance of light and dark within yourself and become the force user you've always been meant to. The proper balance of give and take, of life and death, of energy and void, one foot on each plane, commander and servant both. That, or fall into ruin. On this path you've chosen, those are the choices and you won't turn back.

When you make your way out of the workshop you find Cal leaning on the door to your quarters, within earshot of your conversation. You should have assumed you'd need a door for privacy.

“What'd you hear?”

You tap in the entrance code to your quarters and Cal stands up just in time to avoid tumbling backwards.

“Everything.”

You put the bundled sabers on a ledge as you busy yourself with gathering your few belongings into a pack. Cal sits on your bed even though there's a perfectly good chair nearby.

“And?”

“Corellia is a good place to start. We can kill two birds with one stone. I know someone that can get us a ship and incidentally he can be our first target. It's perfect.”

“Tell me about him.”

“Draxum Tam Royo...Tem Raya...I'll remember when I see him. Human, works on one of the shipyards in Corellia's orbit. Used to work for Corellia Arms outfitting battleships with weaponry before the CEC bought and absorbed it. Now he does a lot of the same thing almost exclusively for the Empire except when he deals arms for Black Sun on the side.” Cal waggles his eyebrows.

“Sounds promising. How do you know him? Feet off my bed.” You slap the toe of his boot and he doesn't hesitate to set both feet on the floor.

“He made some...non-standard modifications to my V1. For a price of course, you know men like him, loyal to the almighty credit.”

You pause and turn to him, it's almost innocent the way he looks up at you. He's relishing the newness of this back and forth. When Cal first saw you he knew you were connected. It's taken all this time to sort out how.

It's still strange, still bizarre to be partnered up with this person who until recently was hunting you like an animal, who watched you nearly freeze to death in bondage. The same person you left to be battered to death by a Jotaz on Zeffo and again on Kashyyyk under a pile of angry wyyyschokk. How can this be that Inquisitor?

“What are you loyal to?”

He exhales through his nose. “When are you going to stop asking me that?”

You expect him to look annoyed but instead his expression is pleading.

The matter is still far from settled but part of uncovering the terms of your new association with the former Eleventh Brother has been discovering what doesn't work for you. You hold his gaze for a long moment without a word.

Hunter and prey is a thing of your past. It's time to move forward.

Cal watches you unwrap the bundle on the shelf and you let yourself feel the collective weight of the weapons in your hands. Both look the same in every way, to halves of one whole. To choose one over the other makes no difference, you just know that they aren't both meant for you.

You square yourself up before where he sits on your bed. Closing your eyes you pick one and hold it out to him.

“Here.”

They seem to be happening more than ever now but it is still a rare moment where Cal Kestis feels unsure of himself. Unsure of what to say or do, obviously he is meant to reach out and accept this gift. This token of trust and parity that says more than your meager words ever could.

His hand hovers over the offered weapon but in his truest form Cal does not behave the way you expect. He wraps his fingers around your wrist and turns it in such a way that the saber hilt clatters to the floor.

Cal places your flattened palm on the side of his face and nuzzles into your touch like a starved lothcat. You feel every dip and curve of his face and head as he buries himself in your grasp.

The cloth and saber in your other hand follow their counterpart in falling discarded to the ground as you run your hand over the closely shorn red stubble of Cal's head. He doesn't flinch when your fingertips gently pass over the tender and most recently acquired scar that spans nearly his entire skull.

When you step forward and your shins hit the side of the bed Cal buries his forehead into the space just under your navel and wraps his long covetous fingers around your waist and twists them into the fabric there. A shiver passes through you when you feel his hot breath pass over the clasp of your belt buckle.

Oh.

An unfamiliar heat coils inside you that may have frightened you at one time, but if you've learned anything at all from dipping your toes into the deep swirling pools of the dark side it's to throw yourself wholly at the things that frighten you.

Cal stands slowly and the tip of his nose trails its way up your body, between your breasts and up the side of your neck as you hear him inhale a deep raking breath, trying to breath you in like a smoke.

For the first time in several minutes of intense interaction your eyes meet and you both pause. Your cheeks are flushed and he's practically panting. What are you doing? Is this situation not complicated enough without adding ...this?

It's not that this part of yourself is new and frightening, this is about being smart. What you're doing right now seems very stupid.

When he looks at you though, Cal is asking himself what could be more simple?

There's a rap on the door and you're suddenly descended from wherever you had been transported. Back on the Mantis, back in your quarters and … in Cal's arms? You shove him and he falls backward into the blankets, confused.

“Yes?” you answer.

“Starting our decent. Docking in Coronet in five, kiddo.” Greez's gravelly voice rings through.

Too frazzled to explain you simply exit the room.

“Thanks, Greez.” you barely pause to acknowledge the captain as you pass him by, leaving not one but two men confused in your wake.

Standing in your open doorway, Greez can't help himself but to see Cal sprawled out on the bed looking red cheeked and bereft. When Greez says nothing but seems unable to look away, Cal shrugs emphatically and that seems to communicate enough of the situation to satisfy the Latero.

“I'm gonna go...land the ship.” With a heavy sigh Greez departs awkwardly toward the cockpit.

Cal lets his head fall back into the bedding for a few moments before collecting his new weapon off the floor and stepping out the door into his new very simple and straight forward life.

Passing through the bustling streets of Coronet, Corellia's capital city, you do your best not to linger on the bittersweet goodbyes you had just shared with the Mantis crew.

Parkem flit unceremoniously into the night with a very curt thank you and goodbye. It matched every other interaction you had shared with him.

Byt chose to stay on with the Mantis. A gifted medic is not something any adventuring crew has the luxury to turn away, and besides who could say no to the sharp toothed smile of Byt Ilan? Though Cere and Greez had been company enough for each other before they had found you it's still a comfort that your departure will not be felt so sorely with Byt around.

He hugged you warmly and asked that you take care of yourself. With Cal he exchanged a terse nod and a good natured slap on the shoulder, albiet Cal's bad shoulder.

Greez, who is softer than he displays, wrapped one set of arms around you and wiped away tears he claimed not to have with the other.

“You're a good kid. You'll always be a good kid.” He somehow strikes your deepest chord without ever having discussed it with you. How very like him.

It takes particular strength to say goodbye to Cere. She pats your shoulders and cups your face in a sequence like a mother hen going over the inventory of your wholeness. Like the nature of all your previously existing relationships, your dynamic with Cere had shifted since returning from Nur. Rescuing a person from a torturous death repeatedly and nursing them back to health will do things like that.

“You remember the coordinates for Bogano?” You nod. “Good, lay low there when you need to. I put some extra rations and credits in your pack. I had to, just in case.”

“Cere,” you speak with the loving frustration of an overprotected child, “Thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

“We're going to see each other again.”

“I know we will. I hope I recognize you.” You're not sure you know what she meant by that. “Be careful. Take care of each other. May the Force be with you.”

Cal has been pretending not to hear the two of you.

“You too ” you answered with finality.

You fail to keep yourself from dwelling on the weight of the goodbyes that sit like stones in your chest. You'll carry them for some time.

“Inquisitor Kestis!, the ginger Jedi killer himself. What brings you to my end of the system?” Draxum Tem Roya's overly familiar and salesman-like voice grates on you instantly. “You've changed a little, I see.” He points to his own eye jovially, indicating Cal's prosthetic, as he drapes an arm over Cal's shoulders.

Draxum is lavishly adorned in garish trappings. He talks constantly with his hands and his tone is always friendly, though he can't seem to keep from spitting.

“I need a ship. Not too big, something fast and stealthy. Small crew. Extended missions. Maybe a light freighter.”

“Guns?”

“Of course.”

“Going undercover, Inquisitor? Stealth isn't usually your forte. Handling some serious business for the Emperor?” The greasy looking man notices you for the first time and you feel filthy from having his eyes on you.

“How much does Moff Vorru pay you to pester me for gossip, Drax?” Cal answers scornfully as you end your staring match with the unbearable man.

“Show us what you have.” You deadpan with no small amount of menace in your voice. You never thought you would be the broody counterpart to Cal's friendlier disposition but here we are. Cal is tickled by your threatening tone.

“I have quite a bit, little Miss. Yes, quite a bit to show you.” Draxum who does not appropriately measure his stance with you, answers.  
Draxum's eyes are drawn to Cal when he clears his throat pointedly.

“Right this way.”

After a short walk through rows and rows of levels floor to ceiling, filled with starships in varying classes and states of repair, you arrive to a line of light freighters.

“I have just in, some VCX-100s. Each with a small dock, two starfighters. Crew quarters, common room, dorsal and frontal turret. I'll even throw in a backup hyper-drive since we're such old friends.”

You've heard of these ships but haven't seen one yet. Backup hyperdrives are a standard feature. With the right pilot behind the controls, this ship could be a formidable opponent against imperial forces. You start to walk a short distance away from the blathering man, drawn to one end of the hangar.

“I have it green, blue, and bare right now.” He drones on.

You stop in front of a much smaller but considerably sleeker ship, thought it's been beat to hell. There's considerable wear as it appears mightily used and covered all over in a healthy coat of dust and dirt.

“Ah, the HWK-290.Your friend has discerning taste, Inquisitor.” They follow you over and as Cal ducks under the wing of said ship, Draxum steps close behind you.

“This was once a quality vessel. As it is however, I am sending it on its way to the scrapyard. Not suitable at all for the Empire's state of the art needs.” You sense that he's lying. Not in the Force, it's just terribly obvious.

“Tell me about it. Those cannons aren't standard.” You turn face to face with Draxum Tem Roya who steps back a pace when it's suddenly too obvious how inappropriate his proximity had been.

“This model is heavily modified. Unique even. I believe it belonged at one time to an Imperial fugitive, hence the damages and also that it's previous owner is quite expired. I cannot in good conscience sell you a ship that will barely fly.” More lies, he has a buyer.

Cal runs his hand over the side of the ship's weathered hide and a swathe of dirt comes away to reveal deep scarlet paint.

“We'll pay double the current bid.” Cal strides over confidently, dusting off his hands, knowing full well that you have only your next meal's worth of credits between you.

“It is already sold.” Draxum finally drops the thinly veiled ruse.

Cal opens his mouth to argue but instead you cut in between them.

“Triple and won't you show me the inside?” You tilt your head and bat your lashes in a way that makes Cal bristle beside you.

Your departure in attitude from when you first addressed the man is alarmingly stark but he is too stupid to see anything other than what he's expected from you the entire time.

“That is quite a bit of credits, Miss.”

“Like you said, Emperor's business. We can spare no expense.” You deign to smile at the man and he think he understands why but he does not.

“I suppose it cannot hurt to have a look. This way, my darling.”

The rear doors open and Draxum wrings his hands greedily up the small ramp, never to emerge again. Cal watches in awe as you unclip your lightsaber from your belt and dare to wink at him as you follow.

His heart thumps hard in his chest as a crimson light glows outward down the ramp of your new ship.


	13. Feeding Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The delicious thrill of the hunt flares in your chest even before you've set eyes on your quarry.
> 
> You turn to beam at Cal, who no doubt understands this particular form of revelry, but the seats there are empty. In the raucous of the tavern you hadn't noticed the sudden absence of merrymaking beside you. Honestly, it's when you don't hear him that Cal is causing the most damage. You look down the row of empty stools a patron at the far end eyes you warily.
> 
> When you turn to your bar stool to calmly seat yourself Cal is behind you, an inch from your nose. At this point it shouldn't shock you but it does. Your memory recalls the first face to face you had with him in a deep dark cave on Zeffo. Being confronted now with his pleasant smile is a far cry from the black plasteel helmet he spied you from a lifetime ago. The thought shakes you and that makes him chuckle."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you thank thank you for continuing to read and hopefully enjoy this story of mine! I adore and thrive off your feedback. As always and forever! <3 
> 
> Added some new tags. 
> 
> Please enjoy!

You've been hiking for hours. Miles of driven snow in every direction, the only sign of your progress through it are the knee deep holes left one after the other behind you. You're both bundled so tightly in warm layers that the howling winds are only whispers over your covered ears. Cal tried to shout over it at first but gave up when he could barely hear himself. You didn't think it was possible but you travel with Cal in amiable silence until the speck looming in the distance grows into a destination, Fort Ypso, brimming with signs of life.

With the warmth of The Lodge slowly seeping into your bones you begin the time consuming process of unwrapping yourself from the myriad of protective layering that's kept you safe from the biting elements. As Cal's face coverings come away, warm air touches the cold skin of his cheeks and nose turning them a bright pink. His ears especially.

A gruff looking barkeep sidles up to you with an expectant look that asks for your order.

“Whatever you've got that's hot. Two.”

They say nothing but shuffle away to find two clean cups.

Looking around, the place is filled with varying types, most unsavory. Laborers working on the new tram to the mine on top of the mountain and gamblers come to try their luck in tournaments or drown in their losses by spiraling further into debt. The space teeters on the verge of a remote decadence, perhaps taking itself a bit too seriously, marketing its shady activity as legitimate business. This is the bright shining capital of the planet Vandor.

“Nice place.” Cal remarks, rubbing his hands together and breathing warm air into them.

You breath in confidence and exhale doubt as you attempt to blend and act naturally. In places like these there are always more eyes on you than those you are aware of. You take your cues from Cal, who seems to have never felt the slightest out of place in his life, who moves with the confidence of a person that believes that wherever he is, is where he belongs.

The barkeep returns with two jugs of hot dark liquid. Tendrils of steam drift enticingly upward but your nose-hairs curl away from the acrid smell. You try to keep the barkeeps attention to begin gathering the information you're after but they've buggered off too soon.

Without hesitation Cal lifts one of the mugs and takes a hearty gulp of the stuff proceeding to hack and cough loudly causing a small scene. So much for blending in.

“Kriffing hell! That's the kind of swill that puts hair on your chest, alright. Woo!” He laughs and takes another long drought, thumping a fist on his chest as it goes down.

“Are you finished? Can we get to business, please?” You're nervous but you can't help but smirk at his antics. How does Cal seem to have fun everywhere he goes? He sees you smiling and can't help himself.

“Always about the business with you, what about the pleasure, Y/N? Take a sip you're gonna grow a beard.” He nudges your cup closer to you and some sloshes onto the counter.

“You'd love that.” You tease, taking the drink into your hand.

“It would be funny.” He slides into your space leaning his elbows on the bar.

You chew on your lip looking up into his flushed face as you're hit with the heady scent of alcohol on his breath. You take a swig of the drink and it's so bitter you feel your insides wither. You refuse, however to appear anything other than placidly satisfied.

“It's...delightful.” you stutter slightly as the molten heat of the beverage spreads through your chest, melting everything in its path.

“I see that.” His voice is lower. You catch him staring at the bead of liquid lingering on your lip.

“Is that a whisker already?” He touches his thumb to your chin. You don't do it intentionally, but you bat your eyelashes, blinking slowly at him, dreamily. The lump of his throat bobs when he swallows hard.

So many moments like this one have passed between you since you gave him his half of the saber. Playful, intimate, if you want to read them that way, and fleeting. Neither one of you have mentioned the incident, it makes enjoyable moments like these even more awkward, for you at least.

“HEY!” a raspy voice calls out behind you, a short way down the bar. You see Cal's hackles rise instantly and his side eye is positively epic. He hates to be interrupted.

Behind him you see a grizzled green klatooinian with a clawed finger pointed at Cal's back. His drinking companion snickers into his cup with a supportive hand on the instigator's shoulder, egging him on.

You look up at Cal before he turns to confront the duo, a warning. We're not here to start bar brawls. Cal dons a disingenuous smile and aims it at the klatooinian, choosing not to acknowledge your admonition. He gestures widely with his hands, to ask WHAT, without uttering the word.

“We don't like your kind here.” Beverage drips from the jutting lower jaw of the ruffian, who stands with great effort.

Just great.

“This place is full of humans.” You try to interject with reason, your first mistake.

“No, not humans!” His friend answers for him, slurring his words.

“Then what?” Cal asks through gritted teeth.

“Gingers!” the original offender shouts. Spittle careens through the air but lands on the stool between you. Close enough to still be offensive.

“I've heard human gingers have no spirits inside them, more like animals or plants. Alive but not living. Is that true? I think yes, just by looking.” The green instigator sneers.

“What's a pretty thing like you doing with a unliving creature like this, young enough to still be hanging off his mother's teat?” The equally rude companion directs attentions toward you. “Come let us wizened elders show you what's what.”

Cal's hand flies to the back of his belt where his lightsaber is clipped. But when you grab his wrist his open palm, to your surprise, reveals a scant few credits. He smiles innocently at your obvious befuddlement.

“Allow me to change your minds. Let me buy you boys a drink.”

You're grateful for this uncharacteristic show of benevolence although you remain highly suspicious, as always you keep one eye trained on the one time inquisitor. The klatooinians, as expected, accept the free booze with relish.

When the barkeep returns with drinks for Cal and his newfound friends you get the chance you had been hoping for. You hear the unmistakable sound of alcohol fueled camaraderie beside you, which completely puzzles you but the distraction has allowed you to candidly get down to business and so you choose not to question this blessing in disguise. You place a few extra credits on the sticky countertop and the barkeep pauses to scoop them up, waiting for your inquiry.

“I want to see Zhor. Surely they know I'm here. Set up a meeting for me.” You suspect that skirting around pleasantries and cutting straight to the matter of things is something this barkeep appreciates. You feign assertiveness and self-assurance as the grizzled proprietor weighs and measures you with their gaze.

“What is your business with Governor Zhor?”

“Call it an opportunity.”

A blank stare 

“Entertainment. The kind that will drown us all in credits.”

When the barkeep hears those magic words they give you a minute nod of assent.

“Wait here.” They shuffle away in no apparent rush.

You're very pleased with yourself after this successful step one. Vil Zhor isn't quite the biggest fish you're after but you've traveled a long way to end their life and after weeks of planning you're closer now than you've ever been. The delicious thrill of the hunt flares in your chest even before you've set eyes on your quarry.

You turn to beam at Cal, who no doubt understands this particular form of revelry, but the seats there are empty. In the raucous of the tavern you hadn't noticed the sudden absence of merrymaking beside you. Honestly, it's when you don't hear him that Cal is causing the most damage. You look down the row of empty stools a patron at the far end eyes you warily.

In an effort to maintain your cool and collected facade of assertion you stop yourself from spinning around to look in every direction for a shock of red hair. He better come back before you're called to meet Zhor. Still, you begin to mentally prepare yourself to complete this mission on your own. Damn him. 

When you turn to your bar stool to calmly seat yourself Cal is behind you, an inch from your nose. At this point it shouldn't shock you but it does. Your memory recalls the first face to face you had with him in a deep dark cave on Zeffo. Being confronted now with his pleasant smile is a far cry from the black plasteel helmet he spied you from a lifetime ago. The thought shakes you and that makes him chuckle.

“Stars above, Cal, where did you go? Where are the klatooinians?” You answer your own question when you spy a small red spattering on his cheek.

“Fresher” he spurts as though that was all the answer you require. When you continue to stare expectantly he elaborates in an unhelpful way. “When you gotta go you gotta go.”

Your eyebrows pinch together with worry. How has this endeavor been jeopardized so many times before it's officially even begun. He reads your expression.

“Don't worry so much. We'll be out of here before anyone finds them.” He's very satisfied with himself and more serene than usual. His eyelids look heavy and his shoulders relaxed. You suspect it's the euphoria that follows bloodshed, something you're still learning to recognize and adore but an old companion for Cal, one he can't live without.

You'll have to discuss wanton killing with him later, controlled and orchestrated murder for those who deserve it will have to be enough if you're going to work together. Although those klatooinians seemed far from innocent, speculation isn't what determines the value of a living thing, rudeness either. You breathe and adjust your thoughts from Jedi to Avenger. Now isn't the time to redraw your line in the sand. This whole planet is part of the Empire, funneling natural resources like coaxium into the fathomless machine. Fuck em.

Still, there is a nagging at the back of your mind.

When you look at Cal again he's been examining you with great interest, tilting his head this way and that like an inquisitive dog, he can tell your thoughts spiraled inwardly and he doesn't ask but you know he's dying to.

“I did something wrong.” He both states and asks, not understanding.

“We'll talk about it later.” you assure him as you spit on the edge of your sleeve and rub it over the dried blood on his face.

“It's cute that you're still so sentimental.” He stares at you unabashedly as you fuss over him. “Naive. But cute.”

You're hand falls like a weight to your side.

“You're really something, you know that?” You don't mean it as a compliment.

“Thank you.” His response is veiled in politeness and full of snark. If you didn't know him at all you might take it personally.

“Follow me” a voice croaks from behind you both. It's the barkeep, who is lighter on their feet than you had assumed. You vow inwardly that no one else will sneak up on you today.

At a slow pace you follow the proprietor past a row of drunkards, a series of pazaak tables and a roaring fire pit, into a lavishly decorated back office. Evenly spaced on the rich dark wood of the far wall are two mounted kod'yok heads. Their empty glass eyes shine in the light of the fireplace and their long pointed horns appear to be formidable still.

A garishly sized desk is flanked on either side by a pair of purge troopers standing at attention, as still as the mounted trophies. You didn't expect to see them though they don't surprise you. You've come a long way since taking the life of Draxum Tem Roya, surely Val Zhor and other Imperial sympathizers have begun to notice. There will be increased security all over.

Between the designated muscle, nestled in a chair too small for their massive height, sits Val Zhor. A muun with deep roots in the Intergalactic Banking Clan and recently declared officially for the Empire. They are bedecked in modestly colored robes and a large simple chromium medallion, understated but certainly expensive. They intertwine their elongated fingers and fix you with their small bead-like eyes. You've never met a muun before and it surprises you when the nasal and rather high-pitched voice rings out into the room.

“I'm told you have a business proposition for me?”

You seat yourself across from them while Cal stands behind you and casually examines the room, You can feel the troopers eyes on you even through their expressionless helmets.

Your heart is hammering in your chest but outwardly you're as calm as cool water. You've learned that to pacify evil men you must act massively inconvenienced or terribly charmed by them. Sometimes both.

“A favor for you, really. Coming all the way out here to the middle of nowhere to bring you this blessing. I see bored men out in your tavern, tired of looking at each other's ugly faces.”

“I know I'm tired of seeing them and we just got here. Congratulations on your governorship by the way. Very official.” Cal chimes in over his shoulder while he warms his hands on the fire.

“The title is pending, but as good as won.” He says with no small amount of venom. “And what is that you propose to do about the appearance of my patrons?” Zhor quickly grows tired of your pitch and so you cut to the chase. These are very direct people living on Vandor.

“Not them. Entertainers.” You let the word fall flat on the desk for everyone to digest before you continue. “dancers, musicians. To bring some life to Fort Ypso, some beauty. It's the next step in pioneering land. After the tram is built work on that mine will triple and these men already need distracting from their dreary work on this bleak planet.”

“You'd be a fool not to.” Cal add again from behind you.

“You have these entertainers? They're good? They do...everything?” Muun culture does not focus particularly on the arts.

“They have no choice but to be the very best. In fact, they're bred for it.” You drop a crumb of condemning bait.

“I see.” Zhor ponders the connotations of such a venture. “Profits will be split 60/40 in favor of The Lodge. I agree to observe this entertainment before documents are finalized.”

You watch your prey step into the carefully laid snare and your heart is thumping quickly for a new reason all together.

“But we have an agreement?”

Your breath hitches in the frozen moment before the trap is sprung. You grab hold of the rope...

“I believe we do. Yes.”

...and you pull it tight.

Vel Zhor extends his open hand in a gesture understood on nearly every planet in the galaxy as the final punctuation on a completed business deal. The marred and mottled skin of your right hand and arm peaks out of your sleeve as you shake his firmly. From that point on things progress in a way neither one of you could have precisely predicted.

You pull the muun forward over the desk with one hand and produce an ignited lightsaber in the other. His elongated face is awash in crimson light.

As you've said before, this is your first encounter with a muun and accounting for the extended length and flexibility of their limbs is difficult in sprung combat. With the barest but lightning fast adjustment, Zhor's long almost elastic neck avoids the humming red blade of your saber.

The two purge troopers that stood at the ready bolt into action only to be frozen where they stand. Their weapons inch closer and closer to you as they strain against the slow of time. Cal raises his extended hands and the soldiers lift up into the air.

Zhor's long fingers and slick sweaty palm slips from your grasp and he trips an alarm, ducking behind the massive desk. It's loud but pitiful compared to the blaring sirens of the fortress Inquisitorius.

With a a forward gesture Cal impales the suspended troopers on the antlers of the mounted kod'yok, adding trophies of his own. Their heavy weapons, sizzling with purple energy clatter to the carpeted floor.

In anger you hack at the desk and cleave it in two neat pieces to reveal the cowering shape of Vil Zhor. Credits and gambling chips spill out onto the floor. His hands are raised above his head and they remind you of leafless branches, bent and twisted at knobby intersections.

“No! Please don't! I can pay you!”

“I'd pay you for this pleasure.” Your pupils dilate seconds before you raise your saber above your head, ready to strike.

Blaster shots ring out from behind you. Cal manages to deflect several bolts but you're forced to duck out of the way as one or two slip through. You dive behind one overturned half of Zhor's desk and Cal behind the other.

When you peak out from behind the lavish dark wood you see armed ruffians that were moments ago, only bar patrons filing in through the double doors. Ten at least.

Zhor scuttles towards them across the room, his voice is even higher pitched now that it is colored with fear.

“Get out of my way!” he shrieks as he pushes through the wall of muscle and on his way out of the room. “ One thousand credits for their lives!”

The barriers eat up blaster fire and the back wall becomes peppered with scorch marks. When there's a pause in the barrage you shout as loud as you can.

“Everything of value in this office is yours if you let us through!”

Wasting no time Cal gathers up loose credits strewn across the floor and throws them up into the air before the mercenaries.

“Here, start with these!”

Their weapons sink down low as their eyes twinkle with the possibility of untold riches. Some even drop their blasters completely in favor of grabbing for wealth with two hands. Cal grabs your shoulder and pulls you through the distracted goons. Their mad grabs for cash quickly turn to fiststiciffs, you leave the familiar crack of knuckles on skull behind you.

The tavern is in an uproar though at the very edges of the vast room some very focused pazaak players can't be bothered. They'd never finish a game if they looked up every time a few blasters went off.

You dart through the crowd and out into the snow. The violent wind whips your hair in every direction and you can already feel the frozen snow collecting on your brows and lashes. The roar of a ship engine commands you attention as a small shuttle leaves the ground a short distance away.

“He's getting away!” You can hear Cal shout over the howling wind.

“No, he isn't” you say more to yourself.

Raising your hands in the air you reach out in the Force and grab hold of the shuttle. The engine sputters as it drives hard against your will. It doesn't move an inch forward but stays suspended in the air no matter how hard you call its massive form toward you.

This exertion is costing you a lot of energy but after having your prey firmly within your grasp only to slip through your fingers has filled you with a rage and fury that could power a small city.

Sweat forms on your brow and freezes in the cold air as you struggle to bring the ship to the ground.

Suddenly, Cal plants himself in front of you, lightsaber in hand. The well aimed weapon whooshes through the snowy air like a red propeller and sparks fly from the rear end of the shuttle as the saber slices through its left thruster before returning soundly to its master's waiting hand.

The shuttle spirals to the ground sending a wave of snow high into the air and a pillar of black smoke rises from the crash as you both throw yourselves in its direction.

Sparks and billowing smoke are the only signs of movement as you approach. The thrill is in the hunt but you are impatient for release, frustration fuels your strength in the Force. With a gesture you remove and crumple the shuttle door and still there appears to be no movement within. You ponder the possibility of Zhor dying in the crash. 

You begin to feel robbed until you see Cal. His eyes are trained on the wreck with laser focus and he raises his glowing red saber to ready position while sinking into a low crouch. For a short moment you hear nothing, not even the whistling of the wind, in the quiet before the storm.

From within the darkness of the ship, ten separate lights crackle to life in bright purple. Cal's lip curls in a sneer as you follow his lead and prepare to fight.

“MagnaGuards.” The distaste is clear in his voice. He prefers for his opponents to be living. Victory over a machine is cold and their loss is passionless, he says.

You haven't heard of anyone employing IG-100 MagnaGuard droids since the clone wars. You hope against hope that these units are aged and worn at least. A few antiques are no match for you and Cal surely.

Five red eyed droids exit the wrecked shuttle into the snow with purpose. Each one armed with a high powered electrostaff. The one in the center, flanked on each side by two fellows, appears to be heavily modified. It's larger than the others but less substantial somehow, as though pieces are missing.

You worry that the knee deep snow will minimize and slow your movements but as the thought occurs to you it has already passed through Cal's mind and he begins the fight by hurtling a wave of a few hundred pounds of powdery snow over and onto the approaching droids. It gives you the short lived advantage of surprise, though the droids do nothing to express this.

These droids have been in the fight since you were a youngling. They have battled every brand of opponent there is and yet they aren't organized enough for you and Cal. You don't know if they employ a hive mind with one another but you know it won't help them. You both weave through the metal limbs with a synchronicity any droid would envy.

You maneuver away from one another to create distance between each droid as they outnumber you. Then you quickly regroup and tackle each opponent one at a time, together. Cal combats and dismembers one opponent after another while you fend off the adversaries that are eager for their turn as they grow close.

In this tandem way of fighting you feel a connection to Cal that's almost as deep as when you were fighting each other. You would deny the intimacy of those battles then, but looking back there's no denying that's where your...affiliation was formed. Your heart sings when you watch him in his element and because you know just what it's like to have that intensity trained on you, you almost pity these droids.

The strategy works in dispatching three droids that collapse in a gratifying shower of sparks. Until only the large one and another is left. You're both panting and your breath comes in bursts of misty vapor in the air. You aren't sure why they each shed their visor and cloak. Hazy sunlight reflects off the pristine white snow and their duranium frames.

The modified MagnaGuard lowers itself onto one knee as the second steps up onto, rather into, its back. After a series of loud clicks and melding what stands before you is a giant four armed Guard droid. Red eyes and a face look out from the thing's torso and again from its shoulders as it flourishes not one but two electrostaves with four highly trained arms.

“Are you serious?! That's awesome!” Cal's eyes are filled with childlike wonder, even when he's spattered with oily gore of these droids' comrades “Why didn't they do that from the start?”

“Distract it, I'm going up high!” You ignore his gleefulness and in an instant he becomes the focused warrior again.

Cal's saber crackles and pops as it collides repeatedly with their weapons. The staves are purple blurs whirring In wide arcs that cover lots of ground. Cal dodges one only to have the other follow right behind. It's distraction enough for you to get a running start as you jump and cling to the back of your foe.

Your fingers and hands are nearly crushed in its machinery several times before you reach its shoulders. As you pull yourself up beside the topmost head, the bright purple end of an electrostaff connects with your shoulder nearly costing you your grip.

Cal's head whips in your direction when you cry out and it gives the droid the opening to plant its heavy metal foot on his back planting him face down in the snow. Panic sets in as you cling with one arm to the bucking droid. Cal's hands claw desperately through the snow as he is pinned in place.

With only a moment to act you manage to use gravity and the droids momentum to plunge your lightsaber into its underarm and drag your weapon through its machinery in a downward spiral. A terrible sizzle and the nearest thing to a wail ring out and die on the wind as you land your two feet firmly in the snow. The red tip of your lightsaber juts obscenely from the droid's abdominal mouth.

The massive droid falls backward and you duck between it's legs.

Cal turns himself onto his back, gasping for breath. You mean to help him him up when you put your hand out but movement caught from the corner of your eye reminds you of what you're doing on this forsaken planet. You take off into the snow after Vil Zhor leaving Cal on his back reaching into the empty air, confused. Finally your hunt is near its end.

The back and forth of your fight has taken you a ways from the shuttle crash site but you're still there before Zhor can get more than twenty feet from it.

Your vision funnels to encompass only this desperate straggling being, tripping on his robes. You swear you can hear the rapid beating of their heart and it's music to your ears.

“Who sent you?! I'll triple what they're paying!” Zhor screeches.

They fall back on their hands and scoot away from your steady approach, appealing ineffectually to your deaf ears.

“I'll give you anything you want! All that I have! More!”

You stand over the fear stricken muun with your lightsaber held high. They won't escape again.

“There's only one thing I want from you.” You don't care if he can hear you.

Damn your eyes, you pause for a moment, delaying the delicious victory over this evil being again when you see your reflection in the wide flat plate of their chromium necklace.

You pray its a trick of the light, the glow from the fire behind you that's slowly consumed the shuttle.

Yellow eyes peer back from your own face, strained and wild. You blink hard and a second look reveals the face you've always known. The face of the woman that has lusted after this person's death and demise specifically for weeks. You climbed a mountain to kill this wretch, battled a company of killer droids, drank the hot dark swill they serve in The Lodge!

Your sword arm begins to lower as you lose yourself in thought. You think of Cal and what an effective killer he is. Never hesitate, let your instincts guide you.

Staring down again at the quibbling Vil Zhor you recall his long list of evil doings, of his devotion to the almighty credit, of the cost of life in his upward climb within the Empire. You consider the unethical mathematics that have gotten him here and the surmounting body count it would take him to go further.

You steel your nerves as your resolve returns in force. It's a lovely shade of yellow after all and perhaps a new eye color will complement your complexion.

You lift Zhor up by his collar and as you bring down the blade of your ruby red weapon you hear the voice of Trilla Suduri call out.

“Avenge us!”

Cal's voice rings out over Trilla's. He's shouting your name and he sounds...urgent?

You look over your shoulder at the flaming shuttle and all you see is a radiant explosion of light. The biting cold of the icy wind is gone as you are engulfed by bright heat that surrounds you and then bowls you over with a wave of force.

Then there's nothing at all.


	14. It's All Fun and Games Until...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Get up. Let's see if you can walk.” He makes to lift you up onto your feet but in the first movement you can't hold back the frightened gasp that's drawn out of you when a spike of pain sets your every nerve on fire. Cal sets you back down and curses.
> 
> Your eyelids flutter and the vision of Cal in front of you fades out and in. He looks annoyed, though not exactly with you. You don't think so at least.
> 
> You don't remember laying back down but now you're looking up at him. His eyes are somewhere else, cast out over the horizon.
> 
> The thought occurs to both of you in the same moment. He could just leave you here. It would be so easy...things could be so simple. Years spent in the service of the Empire taught him that everyone, even his own brothers and sisters in the Order, were obstacles to be overcome. No attachment, no ally, not even your own body is worth more than taking the next step in an upward climb to power. Or power in its most basic form, survival."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much forever and for always! Hearing from you all is so nourishing and motivational and it means the world to me! 
> 
> I've been excited about this one. 
> 
> Buckle up, buttercups, and as always please Enjoy!

The return to consciousness is a road with many stops, each one brings a grounding new sensation. You collect the scattered pieces of yourself and eventually a solid thought forms. It's cold. Dark and cold but only because you haven't opened your eyes. That will come soon but first you let yourself float in the cold dark expanse. A place that once frightened you but now fills you with a blessed numbness, but still no peace. The darkness hums and your body begins buzzing with anxiety coupled with a stingingly high pitched sound.

When your eyelids unstick you see the Eleventh Brother hovering over you. His nose and cheeks burn red from the biting wind and his breath forms puffs of steam in the air. His mouth is moving but all you can hear is the piercing hum. His hands are on you, touching your face, perhaps wrapped around your neck, he's done it before.

Cal's face is wracked, one of his eyes is wet and red rimmed, the other isn't. He was upset about strangling you last time too. If he's happy to remake past mistakes so are you.

Suddenly all you can feel is the air leaving your lungs and though you gasp for breath it comes only in small gasps. Your body is fighting off shock and your mind has convinced you to relive the last time you couldn't breathe with the Eleventh Brother hanging over you. It's Kashyyyk all over again and before you know it your instincts take over and you can only watch your body take action in its struggle to survive.

All at once the raucous of the world strikes you like a hammer as more of your senses return. The unmistakeable sound of roaring fire consuming metal smoulders from the nearby wreckage, coupled with Cal's laughter. This is the perpetual soundtrack of your life.

“You're alive!” he exclaims.

Littered around you are pieces of flaming shrapnel from the destroyed shuttle. Without hesitation you grab a mean looking shard and make to claim his other eye at least. To end this once and for all.

Luckily, the Eleventh Brother is never caught by the same trick twice.The Inquisitor grabs your wrist in a vice-like grip and with his other hand he peels the burning hot shard from your hand, tossing the crude weapon off to the side. You struggle fiercely in his grasp and it only serves to amuse him more.

“Will you stop?! Kriff, Y/N, stop fighting!” The irony of Cal Kestis uttering that particular criticism goes unappreciated in the duress of the moment.

He uncurls your clenched fingers and puts your burned palm on the side of his face, to remind you of the evolution of your intimacy. You do THIS now, not that. Not anymore.

You however, have not returned from the mist of your memory of near death, in your mind you're in a fight to the finish with your greatest foe. Your fingers curl in on his face and neat red streaks come up behind them.

Cal lurches forward as a ribbon of flesh collects under your nail. His features pinch as he absorbs the pain and his other hand comes up into you hair, his fingers twist into the locks and pull your face to his. There's a hint of a smile even through the pain. Nothing amuses Cal more than your tenacity.

He grabs the wrist of your free hand before it collides with the other side of his head. In this stalemate, you inhale each other's ragged breaths as he presses his forehead hard against yours. The clouds of vapor mingle together in the small space between you.

In a single gesture, the fight goes out of you completely. There's no telling who closed the distance first but you land firmly in the here and now when Cal's lips are hot against yours.

The kiss is messy, almost suffocating at first, a desperate plea to call you back from the dark memory in which you had gone adrift. The final pieces of the walls inside you that kept Cal at bay for so long crumble away and as the tension in your muscles release, the urgency is diminished and the kiss softens. The blissful blankness of your mind allows you to indulge in the sweetness of the moment. The purity of two connecting beings.

Who could have known that the Eleventh Brother could be so gentle?

Though you wish to lose yourself again in the newfound euphoria of Cal's mouth, the details of your surroundings pile up around you as you remember where you are and what happened. Adrenaline has kept you safe so far but when you become yourself again you are flooded with a wave of pain and nausea that banishes the intoxicating exhilaration of the kiss.

Cal makes the saddest utterance of protest when you pull away. His eyes are heavily lidded and dazed. You've finally come back to reality and he seems to have left it.

You're sitting in an expanse of ruby red snow that had gone unnoticed until now. Blood is pouring from a wound in your leg and you thought you were dizzy from the romance but now it seems to be blood loss. Maybe both.

Beside you is what you assume to be the sizzling corpse of Vil Zhor, charred and speared all over by shrapnel. They had taken the full brunt of the blast and Cal had practically peeled the muun off of you before you had regained consciousness.

Good. You care more that they are dead than that they had inadvertently saved you by becoming a meat shield.

A short distance away are the scattered remains of the Magnaguards slowly being covered over in the drift as though the battle here never occurred. The only evidence of your fight is the flaming wreckage, blown to pieces and slowly becoming extinguished beneath the surmounting snowblind.

By now you've gone as pale as the white peaks of every mountain top on Vandor and the ache in your leg is making it hard to think. After the crossing of this boundary in your relationship, you allow yourself to dive into the fresh new familiarity with Cal. You clutch his shoulders and bury your face into his neck as a waves of pain top themselves and more lifeblood leaks into the snow. His lovedrunk reverie is broken and suddenly the red puddle fanning out around you is his problem too.

“My leg.” you whisper through gritted teeth.

“Get up. Let's see if you can walk.” He makes to lift you up onto your feet but in the first movement you can't hold back the frightened gasp that's drawn out of you when a spike of pain sets your every nerve on fire. Cal sets you back down and curses.

Your eyelids flutter and the vision of Cal in front of you fades out and in. He looks annoyed, though not exactly with you. You don't think so at least.

You don't remember laying back down but now you're looking up at him. His eyes are somewhere else, cast out over the horizon.

The thought occurs to both of you in the same moment. He could just leave you here. It would be so easy...things could be so simple. Years spent in the service of the Empire taught him that everyone, even his own brothers and sisters in the Order, were obstacles to be overcome. No attachment, no ally, not even your own body is worth more than taking the next step in an upward climb to power. Or power in its most basic form, survival.

Cal's eyes are glued to the distance. You grip his arm pleadingly, as hard as you're able, when your vision begins to fade.

“Cal.....Cal-”

“Someone's coming.” You hear him say matter of factly as you drift from consciousness, wondering if you'll be left to die nestled in this soft powdery snow building up around you.

What you don't see is the small crowd of tavern goers that peak over the crest of the hill with the Iktotshi barkeep at their head. You don't see it when Cal ignites his lightsaber and steps over your supine form like a starving dog guarding a bone. Growling like one too.

Several beats pass where no one speaks. The barkeep is studying the scene intensely. Cal is outnumbered but not outmatched, even with several close range blasters trained on him. Cal wets his lips, hungry for the fight.

“Are we dancing or what?”

The barkeep, who seems completely unaffected by the cold, gestures for his constituents to lower their weapons and they do. Cal doesn't.

The barkeep takes shuffling steps over the the smoldering remains of Vil Zhor. His knees crack when he crouches down speaking candidly into the muun's vacant face.

“I told you I would be there at your end. The Lodge is mine again, you scum. Watch me rule from the netherworld.”

The barkeep stands and spits on what remains of Zhor before turning to face Cal who is vibrating with tension.

“You did us a favor with this one. ” The iktotshi flicks his horned head in the direction of the dead muun. “I have no choice but to report this to the Empire, but not before we fix her up and get you a head start, as thanks.”

“Hands off the goods, fellas. No one's touching my girl.” Cal snarls. The barkeep is unfazed by this show of aggression, he'd have no business if he was scared of tough guys.

“That's fine too. I just thought you want to keep her. From all that red, she's running out of time. Snotty can fix her though. If he can't then no one can.”

Cal unfastens his rigid gaze from the accompanying goons to spare a glance at you. You look like a maiden frozen in sleep from a fairytale, fated for a cursed existence. Your ever waning pallor is glassed over with the serenity of near death. You wish you could say that this was your first or even fourth visit to the world between worlds, teetering on the border of life and death, growing closer to one side by the second.

Cal prefers to see you when your eyes and body are coursing with energy, when your expression is as sharp as steel and your will is as unbending. He remembers how full of life you appeared standing before the flames of that place on Nur. A goddess of destruction.

The flames in his memory warm the cold of his extremities even now.

A pang of ...something sparks in his chest when he thinks he may never see you shoot lightning from your hands again. That you'll never shuffle into the common room of the Pursuit in your pajamas ever again. The last time he saw you yawn will have been the very final time.

That your first and last kiss had been one and the same.

This is unacceptable. He won't allow it.

Cal extinguishes his lightsaber and gives a curt nod to the barkeep.

He hates to see their hands on you. Though he has agreed to accept The Lodge's help his hand is always near his weapon. Finger twitching over the power button.

“All your lives are on the line.” Cal makes it sound like the punchline to a joke he never told. No one laughs and everyone believes him.

You wake up on the Red Pursuit, your ship, in your quarters and in your own bed. You don't remember where it was that you shut your eyes in the first place. Your body let go of the electric fear of being left to die in the snow and replaced it with the comfort of familiarity. With the soft whirr of your very own ship and the smell of your bed linens. The only reminder of your peril is the ache in your leg that grows the more aware you become.

You hiss with discomfort when you attempt to move. Another body in your bed is taking up way more than half the allotted space. You turn your head to see the familiar expanse of a darkly clad set of shoulders. He's over the covers stretched out, arms akimbo. It's a wonder you got any sleep at all.

Cal stirs when he hears you.

He spins in place to lay on his side facing you, close but not touching. One eye is bleary with sleep or either sleeplessness.

“Hey, hot stuff.” he whispers cheerily.

You understand even less of what happened to you when you see his glowing face in your bed beside you but you do feel better than you did a moment ago. When you smile Cal holds the side of your face and runs his thumb over your cheek.

“What happened? I remember... the MagnaGuards. I had Zhor but then...”

He lets you piece as much as you can together before contributing.

“The shuttle exploded..” your brows pinch together in consternation as you recall. “And then we...!” your eyes blow wide when you remember the kiss. Immediately your cheeks go red. Cal appears as smug as the cat that ate the canary.

“But nothing after?”

You are really very tired of puzzling your memories together after near fatal situations.

“Wait! My leg! It still- Cal what happened?” You don't wait for him to answer before you sit up with a groan and tear the covers off your lower half. What you see sets stars spinning around you as you are struck dumb.

Cal sits up and begins explaining rapidly but you don't hear him.

Starting below your right knee, down to and including your five toes, is a shining duranium leg. You attempt to wiggle your mechanical toes and after a three second delay they respond.

“...I didn't want the barkeep's help but you know I'm no good with that stuff. You looked dead already and then Snotty said there was no way to keep the leg. And then the barkeep took my blood to give you. Can you believe we're the same blood type? I'm not even surprised. I knew you'd be mad but really I'm just so glad you're alive...” He's barely taken a breath between words but when he turns you see the deep scratches on the side of his face. Your handiwork.

When you put your hand over the angry marks he shuts up and delves into the touch he has come to crave.

“You saved me.” When you look at him with your eyes full of gratitude and appreciation Cal is struck again by that ...sensation in his chest.

He's been wrong about a lot in his life but Cal was one hundred percent correct in the subnautical Fortress Inquisitorius on the planet Nur when he tried to make you understand that you were his greatest, his only weakness. He tried then and failed to cut you out like a sickness and now you've gone and dug yourself into him.

It frightens him, the things he would do for you, would give for you. The thought fills him with resentment which then begins to anger him and his lip curls slightly as he drifts farther and farther towards the dark. You'll be his downfall, the chink in his armor that will one day be his undoing.

“Besides, I've got a whole other leg.” You attempt a joke when you see how grave his face has become. He's had a moment of pensive thought and so he doesn't immediately absorb your words though he is looking directly into your face. More, his eyes are looking past yours.

“You could say we've got a real leg up on the competition. Cal, a LEG up.” You nudge his side playfully and he gives you an incredulous look before submitting himself to a bout of hearty laughter. How is he ever supposed to stay mad at you? He wipes a mock tear from his mechanized eye.

“Ah, Y/N that was good. You've discovered the secret to good comedy.”

“Which is?”

“Timing.” He cocks an eyebrow aims a very lame finger gun at you.

“I must have learned from watching someone.” You're enjoying the banter but a sheen of cold sweat has begun to form on your forehead and your leg aches wretchedly where it connects to your new metal limb.

It's not the newest or the shiniest but it'll do for now. You are caught up in a fit of hacking and coughing that changes the mood. Hopefully whoever Snotty is, he took precautions to prevent infection while working on your modification. You'll rinse the leg in a bacta wash to be sure.

You will work at making this separate piece part of the whole. Eventually, the delay will grow shorter and shorter and the limb will function practically on instinct. You make sure not to dwell on the limb and instead focus on the joy of your survival in a time when nothing was assured.

It's not in you to be upset about the loss of your leg when you've emerged from yet another deadly situation with your life. In fact you can't believe it's taken this long. One more miraculous survival and you might begin to think dying is not possible. Though the sting and aches you are faced with daily from your scarred and battered body inform you otherwise. The stories your skin could tell.

After a small stretch of silence you pluck up the courage to ask a question that will plague you if it's allowed to persist without an answer. There's no room now for secrets and unsaid things between you and Cal.

“You were thinking of leaving me behind, weren't you?” You make your voice strong, prepared for any answer, because you know Cal will be honest with you.

“The thought occurred to me. But then I decided there's still more fun for us to have.” Somehow he makes the notion sound more charming than gross. You really have changed.

“Were you really going to kill me with that hunk of hot metal? Was one eye not enough, you had to come for the other one too?”

“I thought I was fighting for my life.” you say sheepishly.

“I know.” There is nothing but understanding in his voice, no resentment, no malice.

He understands what it's like to become trapped in a memory or an idea that has been so deeply engraved in your mind. Those things will always be there. They must always be fought but you won't win everyday. It's the same reason you understand why he had to at least consider leaving. He's never survived as a unit and until now it's been only him and the dark.

“Where exactly are we by the way?” You finally think to ask. So far it was sufficient enough to know you were no longer in the snow.

“No destination. Just on a course moving as far away from Vandor as possible. We're pretty high profile at this point and that's our last known location.”

He produces a small holoprojector from his pocket to show you the fractured near translucent shapes of you Dead or Alive warrants. A video under them plays on loop of the two of you running out the front door of The Lodge.

“250,000 credits each. Not too shabby.” He's oddly proud.

“I hate to admit it when there's still so much to be done but we should lay low for a little while. It will give me a chance to get... used to this.” You gesture at your lower half as you lean back exhausted.

Cal stands and waits at the door for instructions.

“Well? Where to?”

“Take us to Bogano.”


	15. Starry Eyed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Up until now Cal has boasted a calm and adaptive head when it comes to battle and especially the hunt. It's what he's trained for, it's his specialty. He can't be caught off his guard and he can and will adjust to any circumstances to achieve his goal. And so it was especially rattling to come face to face with a tiny little droid that had apparently been peaking over the ledge at the troopers beside him for the past several minutes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The time has come, chickadees!
> 
> Writing Always Red and hearing the amazing feedback from all of you has been a such a wonderful experience and I want to thank you from the heart for taking the time to enjoy it with me! 
> 
> This'll be it for now but I know I won't be able to stay away from these murder kids for long. I've already got ideas brewing for a sequel. :) 
> 
> !!Please be warned that this chapter contains graphic imagery!! 
> 
> As always, please enjoy!

You dream every night. They're getting weirder and weirder and they keep you from restful sleep. Nothing would please you more than the dreamless and deathlike rest that only children and the elderly seem to manage but most nights for you it's the bizarre and unsettling products of your subconscious.

Whether the dream is good or bad, it's a lot of the same characters. Somehow Cal has given you lots of material for both ends. He himself has plenty of fodder for nightmares and he's no stranger to them. Cal thinks you don't hear him at night but you do sometimes, another parting gift from the Fortress Inquisitorius.

The familiarity of the inky blackness seeps into every pore, under your nails, down your throat and it's suffocating and empty. So mind numbingly empty that it alerts and electrifies every cell in your body so you've never felt so alive. You see endlessly into every direction and absolutely nothing at all.

It's stressful honestly, not restful but surprisingly serene. Though tonight is a little different. The expanse is the same, stretching out around and into you, as endlessly engulfing but not so dark.

It's red. A true and bright crimson you can't picture anywhere in nature. The color is so vivid you would believe you are the red yourself.

It was easy for your mind to equate existing in the dark to something like drifting through space but the red suddenly translates to liquid and now you're floating. There is no horizon, no barrier between the red expanse and the star studded sky above you. The speckling of white light upon the water makes you think of pearly white teeth jutting from the red gums of a predator's mouth, and then the mucky white bones that start to show when a prey becomes a kill.

In another place you watch a pack of small indiscernible predators disassemble their massive prey and devour it from the inside out like ants piecing apart a prize, like scavengers looting an old star destroyer.

You gasp and a thousand glowing eyes turn on you. A bolt of fear makes you lightheaded as it streaks through your chest and you are well and truly seen by the creatures, their little maws stained with liquid. Your senses urge you to flee although there is no other destination than here and now. Your own helplessness is stifling and you begin to choke.

A warm hand slides into yours and the small contact gathers your scattered pieces. You can't see him yet but you know it's him. Cal's firm grasp gives you ground to stand on and support yourself. You squeeze his hand for dear life and take a deep breath before turning to look him in the eye.

His face is the night sky and his eyes and those of the devouring predators are the smattering of stars that watched you in your cell on Nur. A familiar red light dominates the skyline and looks back at you in a way other stars never have. This one is yours.

You see the Cal you know lean out of the twilight and the red star comes with him. He runs his thumb over your knuckles reassuringly and suddenly there's only you and him awash in the light of a red sun bathing every inch for miles and miles in this place with no walls and nothing in the distance. You can't count the times you've seen Cal Kestis bathed in red light. In life, in your dreams and in your nightmares Cal is always red.

You have felt unnerved by the intensity of the Eleventh Brother's gaze many times before but not now. It frightened you to consider all the ways you may have been perceived but now it stings to admit he's been at least partly right from the very beginning. He could always see you and so you stabbed him in the eye.

Not that he didn't deserve it.

What you see in his eyes now is something even the most puritanical Jedi would fail to ignore, something hot blooded creatures all over the universe can understand at a glance. The inky expanse of the dark side is inside you now and when it sees Cal it purrs like a kitten.

With an unflinching and heavily lidded gaze Cal lifts your hand to his mouth and plants a soft and tender kiss on your knuckles. Another on the back of your hand and one more on the curve of your thumb. The string of contact is interrupted by a wide a dazzling smile as he senses you're being beguiled. Cal huffs a small laugh and you feel the heat of his breath in your palm as he turns your hand over and caresses your wrist with his scarred lip. He even dares to have a taste and your brain stutters when a small spot of skin on your wrist is wet from Cal's tongue.

Stars, you know it's a dream but you still hope you're not actually drooling.

Without thinking you step close and his other hand slides over your waist and up your back, pulling you flush against him. You feel the cold bite of oblivion on your skin in all the places you aren't touching and so you press yourself as hard and as close as possible. To let go is to become lost in the red. Your grip on him is so tight as he trails his mouth up your neck you barely realize when your nails dig into the skin of his back.

Oh, but the sound he makes in your ear.

It makes something in you feel hungrier than you thought possible. A primordial instinct rises from your gut and before you know it you've sunk your teeth into the meat of his shoulder. The gore of his bite wound is smeared across your mouth as the liquid pools up and drips down his back. It's the blackness of the night sky spilling forth and spreading over the red all around you.

You have no time to be mortified by your own actions as Cal's retaliation is immediate. He grabs a fist of your hair and pulls your head back exposing your neck and throat. Your cry is stifled by his vicious bite.

Instincts tell you that it hurts but you make yourself believe it doesn't. In fact you're slightly sickened by the insane correctness of it. What could be more natural than you and Cal Kestis biting scratching and clawing at one another? Spattering a timeless red expanse in a blanket of cold and comforting night in a bacchanalian display of passion. It's what you two do.

Pieces of you fall away and meld with the dark. It spills from every gaping wound you've inflicted on one another. Soon the predators are back and the stars around you, pouring out of you, become their glowing eyes. Once again they spy you from the dark, closing in and waiting for the scraps from the table of your clash, your meal, and your intimacy.

The creatures swarm and you are blotted out. The writing mass eventually dissipates to reveal both your bleach white bones in one messy pile. When they fall to dust that spreads in white flecks across the black, you open your eyes in your quarters on The Pursuit. Sweat is trailing down the side of your face and neck into your bedding making it stick to your skin.

You wonder if you'll ever get a good night's rest again as you attempt to make sense of your dream. There's just a bit too much for you to unpack tonight. It almost makes you miss the simple nightmares of Vader chasing you down, or even from when you had first met Cal. They're simple and you know what to expect.

You need a drink of water.

With a heavy sigh you heave yourself off your bed and onto your unsure feet. Immediately you become aware of the fact that that the ship isn't moving. The Red Pursuit's engines are still and it's quieter than quiet.

You haven't grown completely accustomed to your new leg and while you're able to walk, you aren't very good at it yet, but better every day. With one hand hovering over the wall for balance, you make your way slowly into the common area where the lights are delightfully out.

You hear a symphony of insects calling to each other across a planet. A draft tugs wisps of cold air over the toes of your bare feet instantly chilling you. You inhale the fresh air deeply and you smell the sweet rot of wet hay, it mixes with the dirt in your pores and you instantly feel a tiny bit greasy all over. Ah, Bogano.

Around the corner, moonlight stretches into the ship from the open doorway leading to Bogano at night. Cal is sitting on the floor there with one leg down the open ramp. The silver moonlight saps the bright copper color of his short fuzzy hair.

“Oh look, Clanky's awake.” he says without looking at you. “That's what I've been calling you, because you're so stealthy now.”

You hadn't expected him to be up, in fact you hoped he wasn't. You're not exactly ready to face him so soon after your dream. The one where you sensually cannibalized each other. Nevertheless, you plop yourself down next to him and avoid eye contact.

You're both staring forward out onto the same planet but you're seeing different things. The moons are small and distant tonight so you don't see much more than what's immediately around the ship, some waving grass and some metal grating. In the distance you can spot a small sliver of silver light reflecting off the peak of the temple vault. To you everything seems very still at a glance but the night is teeming with energy. Cal can see it all.

“How long ago did we land?” You've been sleeping so much while your leg has been healing. The sleep is unrestful and plagued with dreams similar to this evening's.

“There's a dragon over there.” He points into the dark instead of answering. You instantly recall the massively lazy lizard you've seen on your previous forays on the planet.

“It's harmless if you leave it alone.”

“I know. We landed hours ago.”

You're tense. You don't know what to say or do and there's been a knot in every other muscle since you woke.Your leg is throbbing and that dream was no help at all. Tension rolls off you in waves, while Cal seems surprisingly at peace, still and vaguely content.

Your discomfort is palpable and he is bothered by the energy you've brought with you.

“Bad dream?” He discreetly peers at you sideways. It still shocks you how intuitive he can be when he feels like it.

“I can't tell if it was ok or completely awful.” You finally manage.

“So it was about me.” He smirks arrogantly and that gets a small chuckle out of you. His eyes dart over to you when he hears you laugh.

“I hate it when you're right.” you heave a tired sigh.

Without realizing, your hand extends over your sore knee and you start rubbing ineffectually, anything to relieve the persistent ache. The skin is still tender but a healthy layer of scar tissue has begun to build up and fuse with your prosthetic. It's amazing what Bacta can do in a few days, still, you feel far from fighting shape.

Cal notices and it makes you jump when he reaches over to pull your heavy metal leg to lay across his lap. Delicately, he folds your pantleg up as far as it will go and then begins to roll his thumb in the knotted muscle behind your knee.

A sudden and ungodly bleat escapes you that would make anyone stop in their tracks but Cal continues to make you squirm. Your instinct is to pull away from the hurt but he swats your hand away.

“You have to break up the tissue or it'll get thick and stiff. It'll slow you down.”

“It hurts.” You groan as he works pressure into your skin.

“It's just pain, Y/N. Let it flow through you and then past you.”

The sensation makes you tense enough to crack a stone in your fist before it slowly starts to eke away and the fine line between pleasure and pain becomes blurry in your mind as a knot comes loose. The pressure of his fingers focuses your mind and the discomfort becomes minute and far away. Apparently Cal is both sagacious and contemplative at night.

“Then you can use it. Wear it like armor so that their only weapon against you makes you stronger.” This is more like the advice you usually expect to hear from him.

“Is that part of your Inquisitor training?”

He doesn't answer. It was, but he's not an Inquisitor anymore.

You notice him pausing to stretch and rotate the muscles in his hardworking thumb. He would say it doesn't bother him but you know moist weather like Bogano's makes the healed bone in his hand ache. It's hard to forget the grizzly sight and awkward angle of his broken thumb when he first slipped his restraints in the Mantis' cargo hold.

“Not everything has to feel bad, Cal.” The look he gives you is to say that your statement is obvious. But he doesn't truly know what you mean, how could he? Better to show him.

You take his hand off your leg and begin to methodically kneed the muscle and flesh inside his palm from the wrist outward. His eyelids flutter with relief against his will as he battles the pleasantness of your fingers. In all things pertaining to you the fight is temporary. He is the moth and you are the flame and he will always choose to roast in the heat of your touch.

“Mmm. So I'm learning.” He holds your gaze for a few loaded beats. “Maybe you should remember that for the next time we kiss.” He rubs the old scratch marks on the side of his face, healing but still visible.

Your hands stall and you are stunned by his mentioning the incident. You were happy to dance around the fact until one or both of you die.

“What makes you think that's going to happen ever again?” You have to ask.

“It'll happen again.” He says with winning confidence. You can't help it when the corner of your mouth lifts in a tiny smirk.

“Oh, it will?” The inch you've given is a mile to him and you scoff in a failed attempt to derail his ego.

“I'm confident.” He lifts his chin.

“How unusual.” You can only shake your head at the pure audacity of him. How you hate it when he's right.

Wordlessly, you start again on his hand and yank softly on each digit until you hear a crack or two.  
Cal lets you work while he rests his head on the door frame, eyes shut, luxuriating. His free hand finds its way back to your knee to softly and soothingly massage the pain away. He is learning.

The thunderous quiet of Bogano at night is parted every now and then with a hiss, sigh or moan depending on the pleasure or pain of your work on one another. Mostly you sit in companionable silence until you unintentionally drift to sleep.

The next morning Cal wakes up alone. He turns over lazily and nuzzles his face into the pillow as he recalls the groggy walk to his bedroom in the middle of last night. He remembers pausing in the darkened doorway to listen for the closing whoosh of the door to your quarters, the final punctuation on your evening together.

Not everything has to feel bad. Your voice plays in his mind one more time before he wills himself out of bed with difficulty.

It's late morning and he expects to find you in the kitchen hunched over a mug of strong black caf. The room is still when he enters and there's no aroma of your favorite morning beverage. Strange. He taps on the fresher door. No response. Same goes for your quarters. The pilot's seat of the cockpit is cold. How unusual.

You don't have to be together every second of everyday but this break in routine isn't quite as alarming as it is ...off. Unless you're playing some kind of game with him? He loves the idea immediately but somehow that doesn't seem like something you'd do.

Outside the sun is blindingly bright and it illuminates swampy grassland in every direction. Cal cares nothing for scenery as he studies your footprints in the mud. One is much deeper and heavier than the other, it drags a bit in some spots. A short ways from the ship he spies a trail in the tall grass. Half stalks with burnt edges in even swathes. Who else could that be?

Cal is flushed with the excitement of the chase. He recalls tracking you the first time long ago. It was much harder then with no tracks to follow on the packed frozen dirt of Zeffo. He found you over and over again in other ways. Those days, the fear and doubt rolling off you was a perfumed scent on the wind, giving you up every time. Not so anymore.

He follows your tracks until they disappear over an expanse of soft spongy green moss, ending at a ledge overlooking a small valley. The natural beauty of the landscape would steal anyone's breath but instead Cal drops to his belly when he spies activity in the gorge.

Surrounded by several troopers in classic white plasteel armor is a TIE fighter and transport. Speeders are being unloaded as the Purge Trooper in charge appoints lookouts while he speaks into the communicator on his wrist.

“Reconnaissance team 3 reporting. Nothing yet, Sir.” The modulated voice of the trooper is amplified by the stone wall acoustics.

Cal instantly understands and adapts. The hideaway planet is compromised but the enemy hasn't discovered either of you yet. He'll just find you first and the two of you will jettison off Bogano before that trooper has anything to report. Luckily, looking for you is an area he has some experience in.

Cal closes his eyes and clears his mind extending his awareness in the Force out in every direction. The planet is teeming with power in the living Force. Endlessly vacant expansions all around are filled in every nook and cranny with layers of lifeforms. Most are quite simple. Cal shuffles through them like a filing system until he comes upon a direction at least, with something more complex. He trusts his instincts and moves to take off in your direction.

Up until now Cal has boasted a calm and adaptive head when it comes to battle and especially the hunt. It's what he's trained for, it's his specialty. He can't be caught off his guard and he can and will adjust to any circumstances to achieve his goal. And so it was especially rattling to come face to face with a tiny little droid that had apparently been peaking over the ledge at the troopers beside him for the past several minutes.

A familiar crimson light sparks to life and illuminates the binocular shaped eyes of a trilling little biped. Cal's hand extends on instinct and he flexes the Force surrounding the droid to a slow. He uses the time to collect his wits and asses the threat. Leaning down to examine the droid, Cal extinguishes his lightsaber and adopts a curious expression.

Before he can decide what to make of the thing, the tiny droid whorls to life when the slowness wears off and leaps into action, extending a sizzling shock of electricity through Cal's arm. He falls to his knees with a groan grabbing the droid like a clumsy farmer catching a rebellious chicken.

On contact, Cal is flooded with a strong echo in the Force. Every ounce of Jedi Master Eno Cordova's affection and trust for this droid floods Cal's senses. He feels the friendship and mutual respect they shared. Cal's been experiencing psychometric echoes his whole life, he knows how to shake them off. He holds on to the feeling for one heavenly moment and then closes himself off to it.

“Cordova's droid. We really could have used your help at the beginning of all this.” Cal laughs at the universe's irony.

“Did you hear something?” One trooper asks of another and both Cal and the droid freeze in their squabble. Cal lifts a finger to his lips as a signal to shush. The droid emits a very quiet and worried woo of agreement.

“I hope it's not another one of those hairless cyclops rats. Please don't let it be a cyclops rat.” A tired stormtrooper moans.

“Don't be such a coward. Let's check it out.” The braver of the two chastises the other.

Before even a single squelching footstep makes its way up the slope, the small droid gives up the fight and instead perches itself on Cal's shoulder as the one time Inquisitor spirits them both away. Whoever this droid is he knows the Empire is trouble.

Regularly Cal stops to reach out in the Force, thinking of you and trusting any inkling toward one direction over another. Even his new companion cannot distract him from this, though loquacious to a fault, Cal can't keep himself from striking up a conversation with the plucky droid who hasn't decided to renew their fight or leave Cal's shoulder.

“That was pretty brave, attacking me like that, for such a little droid. What's your name?” Cal is always impressed by those that fight.

A sequence of merry beeps followed by more inquisitive boops echoes from the little hitchhiker.

“BD-1, I'm Cal.” He stops when he sees the telltale leavings of your ungainly gait in the mud. BD-1 trills with upward inflection.

“I'm looking for someone.” He answers matter of factly and is met with more digital chittering. BD-1 seems to be as talkative as Cal.

“No, not you.” Cal studies the direction of your footprints that descend toward a break in the planet's surface, leading down into a mossy cavern. They are suddenly joined by the imprints of several other Imperial-issued infantry boots. Cal's heart rate picks up speed. His eyes on the wet ground play out the story of your capture but he doesn't worry yet. A handful of stormtroopers can't have accomplished what took him a fight that cost his eye, besides they can't have gotten far.

BD-1 chirps and Cal turns his head sharply to look at him.

“A Jedi? Definitely not.” Cal huffs a small laugh at BD-1's expense even though the conclusion is not unreasonable.

Just then a deep bellow echoes in the distance of the cavern followed by the unmistakeable whirr and crackle of a lightsaber. Without hesitation Cal slides down a mud slope into the underground. BD-1 emits a series of excited sounds as mud splatters them both.

Cal's very live lightsaber sits ready in his hand but before him there is only macabre aftermath strewn about the cavern. The carcass of a very very large frog lay smoldering centerstage. A long sticky red tongue stretches out and curls lifelessly across the ground and ribbons of steam rise from the charred flesh. A few short feet away is a facedown flametrooper whose trigger finger remains caught, an ineffective blast of flame scorches the ground continuously. The roar of fire will remain until the trooper's full tank of fuel diminishes, the smell is dizzying. Two more expired troopers litter the ground, one bitten and chewed presumably by the frog and the other sports the circular burn of a lightsaber blade. Behind them all, Cal's heart takes an easy breath when he finally lays his eyes on you, in all your glory.

“How did you find this place? Who told you we'd be here?!” You shout into the helmeted face of the last surviving trooper. All your weight is on their chest, knees pinning down their arms, lightsaber pressed ever so slightly into their armored neck. A durasteel stun cuff is fastened to one of your wrists, the other side is sparking and shattered. The trooper's plasteel helmet steams and sizzles on contact with your blade.

“We're only scouts! Just following orders!” The modulated voice is flooded with fear. The trooper's vulnerability feeds something inside of you. Something that only gets hungrier the more it eats.

“We were just in the closest system! We were told to do reconnaissance. To confirm your presence and wait for the Grand Inquisitor. We- Hrrgghh!” In one deft movement you behead the the frightened stormtrooper midsentence. You've heard all you need to.

“Shit.” You mutter to the sky and take a deep calming breath of the burning air as you drink in the deadly justice of your morbid surroundings.

The trooper's heavy helmet rolls a few paces to stop at Cal's feet. Your eyes lock, pupils blown large and black. He watches you in silent awe until the mutual reveries are broken by the excited trilling of BD-1. The droid has left the safety of Cal's shoulder and begun to skitter around the cavern scanning the fallen foes with an investigative blue light.

There is a glow of firelight between you from the flamethrower still going strong. You try to stand but your leg gives out. Your strength turns back into sharp aching pain as your Force energy is tapped. Cal darts over to you and holds you upright by the shoulders.

“You found me.” Your voice is so different from the tone that had demanded information from the trooper.

“Was there ever a doubt? Can’t let you have all this fun without me.” There's a familiar humor in his voice though it's softer than perhaps you've ever heard. You lean in and press your forehead to his, putting off the reality of your urgent situation for just a few seconds.

“Cal, we can't stay here, it's not safe.”

“I see that.” He makes light of your battlefield strewn with corpses. “There are more near the ship. We should go before they find it.”

BD-1 completes his work and pads over to look you up and down in a way that feels intrusive enough to be a scan. Suddenly a small green stim vial ejects from a compartment on top of his head and BD inclines it toward you. Confused but grateful, you reach out and accept.

“And this is?” You ask as you jab the vial into your leg. Relief floods through you instantly and it reminds you of all the times the minty flush of vitality saved you from the brink.

“That's BD-1. He's Eno Cordova's droid.” Cal makes the introductions as he helps you to your feet. “BD, this is Y/N.”

“He's what?” you sputter. 

“Right?” Cal validates your confusion.

“Uh, hello, BD-1, thanks for the stim.” you remember your manners. Whoever he belonged to, he just helped you out.

The bubbly little droid blips at you and before you can mention that you don't understand binary very well Cal guides you by the shoulders to start back to the Pursuit. As he goes Cal invites the droid up onto his shoulder.

“He said his Master told him to wait for the right person-” BD-1 interrupts with a sharp beep to correct Cal's translation. “Ok, the right JEDI for the job. Let's walk and talk people, we gotta go.”

“Right.” you confirm, there's a Grand Inquisitor on the way.

The way back to the ship is slow going after your fight but the progress is steady and thankfully uneventful. You successfully sneak past the same squad of troopers Cal and BD had. One of the Empire's strengths is its vast numbers but sometimes you wonder how they stay in power with stormtroopers like these. Always two steps behind.

The ship comes into view and you wonder if anything will go smoothly for you ever again. Bogano was the safe zone, where can you go to convalesce and wait for the heat on you to simmer? Where can you go that the Empire won't see you?

As if in answer, the stormtroopers you had managed to avoid appear in the distance. Still a ways behind you but closing in.

“Hey you! Stop right there!” The trooper shouts.

Cal turns to measure the distance, he'll always choose to fight. You grab his arm and pull him away like a feral dog on a leash. Against these troopers perhaps but soon the area will be flooded with imps and no matter how good he is, the two of you are no match for their numbers, in your current state. Besides, the ship is closer than they are.

Cal puts your arm over his shoulder and together you run as hard as you can. Blaster bolts land in the ground just short of your feet as you approach the ship. The ramp extends out at your approach and as you load in BD-1 pauses at the bottom.

“This is it buddy, are you coming or not? Either way we're leaving.” Cal shouts over his shoulder. You grab hold of the doorframe to support yourself and spare a moment for the hesitant droid.

“We're no Jedi, but you're welcome to come with us nonetheless.”

BD's wide shining eyes turn over his shoulder to look at the mighty Temple Vault in the distance where he's waited for years and years alone. He looks again at the oncoming soldiers dressed in bright white white, reflecting the sun's light. You're about to say your goodbye and wish him luck when the pitter patter of BD-1's little metal feet pad up the ramp of the Pursuit.

Cal is already in the cockpit starting up the engine. BD-1 perches himself on the back of Cal's chair like a small overseer. You plop into the pilot's seat and the small squad of troopers shrink into the distance underneath you as the Red Pursuit lifts off and breaks atmo.

BD-1 trills questioningly and Cal translates.

“He wants to know where we're going. Its a good question actually.”

“Right now, anywhere but here.” All you care about in this moment is putting vast tracts of space between you and Bogano.

Speckled starlight turns to thin white streaks across the black as you jump to hyperspace.

It seems you've escaped this time but inwardly you wonder after your old crew and the Mantis. They're the only ones that could have given up Bogano's location. You shake the thought from your head. First make sure you'll be alive to find your friends.

Cal sees you battling yourself in an inward monologue.

“And after that?” his question pulls you from the mire of your mind.

“Somewhere out of reach? Desolate and unknown, until we can figure out how to proceed. Somewhere I can heal. Know anywhere?” You ask your crew of two dryly and rub your aching knee.

A pensive silence passes through the ship until BD-1 is struck by a suggestion, a location from his memory banks. He beeps animatedly at Cal who appears highly skeptical.

“What's he saying?”

“Are you sure?” he asks the droid before sharing. “Dathomir, huh?”

The BD-1 nods emphatically and boops in the affirmative.

“Dathomir?” you repeat. “No one goes there.”

“Exactly.” Cal asserts. “This droid is pretty clever.”

BD-1 twittles with pride.

“Alright. Let's go to Dathomir.” You say the words with surety though you aren't completely convinced.

Dathomir is rumored to be as haunted as it is inhosppitable. Aren't there spiders there too? Why can't you go somewhere without spiders for once. Your brows are pinched in consternation as you enter the coordinates for the Quelli system.

Intuitive Cal reaches out to take your hand in his. He runs his thumb over your knuckles encouragingly and you pause to bathe in the reassurance of his gaze. Suddenly you're filled with focus once more. Looking at him reminds you to be confident in your skill, your instincts and your training. No matter what you've been to each other in the past, rivals or enemies, with the support of this Cal Kestis sitting beside you there is literally nothing you cannot survive or accomplish.

He's grown skilled at reading you, even if he doesn't always understand what he's seeing. In this moment as you gaze at him affectionately, he has no idea what you're thinking.

It steals his breath away when you lean across the seats and plant a chaste and loving kiss on his lips. He is left glowing and speechless when you turn back to the Pursuit's controls, though it doesn't last forever. His shock is replaced with smugness and of course he manages to find the words, though he does continue to glow.

“I told you it would happen again.” He crosses his arms behind his head as BD hops onto his arm rest. You can do nothing to hide your smirk.

“Shut up.” You'd almost regret it if your lips weren't buzzing with electricity, looking forward to the next.

Your crew and your ship hurtle through space to rest and recuperate on a hostile red planet, something about it feels right. At least you know no one is crazy enough to follow you there.


End file.
